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COMPROMISES 


COMPROMISES 

BY 

AGNES  REPPLIER,  LITT.  D. 


1  On  court,  helas !  apr&s  la  v£rit£ ; 
Ah !  croyez  moi,  1'erreur  a  son  merite." 

VOLTAIRE 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 
fctoertf&e  prestf,  CambuD0e 
1905 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


COPYRIGHT  1904  BY  AGNES  RKPPLIER 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  September  1004 


To  C.  F. 


CONTENTS 

THE  LUXURY  OP  CONVERSATION      ....  1 

THE  GAYETY  OF  LIFE 20 

THE  POINT  OF  VIEW 34 

MARRIAGE  IN  FICTION 49 

OUR  BELIEF  IN  BOOKS 66 

THE  BEGGAR'S  POUCH 88 

THE  PILGRIM'S  STAFF 105 

A  QUAKER  DIARY 125 

FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS 153 

THE  SPINSTER 170 

THE  TOURIST 185 

THE  HEADSMAN 199 

CONSECRATED  TO  CRIME 219 

ALLEGRA .        .  240 


COMPROMISES 


THE  LUXURY  OF  CONVERSATION 

Of  indoor  entertainments,  the  truest  and  most  human 
is  conversation.  —  MARK  PATTISON. 

IN  an  age  when  everybody  is  writing  Reminis- 
cences, and  when  nothing  is  left  untold,  we 
hear  a  great  deal  about  the  wit  and  brilliancy 
of  former  days  and  former  conversations. 
Elderly  gentlemen,  conscious  of  an  ever  in- 
creasing dulness  in  life,  would  fain  have  us 
believe  that  its  more  vivacious  characteristics 
vanished  with  their  youth,  and  can  never  be 
tempted  to  return.  Mournful  prophecies  anent 
the  gradual  decay  of  social  gifts  assail  us  on 
every  side.  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy,  recalling 
with  a  sigh  the  group  of  semi-distinguished 
men  who  were  wont  to  grace  George  Eliot's 
Sunday  afternoons,  can  "  only  hope  that  the 
art  of  talking  is  not  destined  to  die  out  with 
the  art  of  letter-writing."  Mr.  George  W. 
E.  Russell  entertains  similar  misgivings.  He 


2  COMPROMISES 

found  his  ideal  talker  in  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold, 
"  a  man  of  the  world  without  being  frivolous, 
and  a  man  of  letters  without  being  pedantic  ; " 
and  he  considers  this  admirable  combination 
as  necessary  as  it  is  rare.  American  chron- 
iclers point  back  to  a  little  gleaming  band  of 
Northern  lights,  and  assure  us  sadly  that  if 
we  never  heard  these  men  in  their  prime,  we 
must  live  and  die  uncheered  by  wit  or  wisdom. 
We  are  born  in  a  barren  day. 

But  conversation,  the  luxury  of  conversa- 
tion, as  De  Quincey  happily  phrases  it,  does 
not  depend  upon  one  or  two  able  talkers.  It 
is  not,  and  never  has  been,  a  question  of  stars, 
but  of  a  good  stock  company.  Neither  can  it 
decay  like  the  art  —  or  the  habit  —  of  letter- 
writing.  The  conditions  are  totally  different. 
Letters  form  a  by-path  of  literature,  a  charm- 
ing, but  occasional,  retreat  for  people  of  cul- 
tivated leisure.  Conversation  in  its  happiest 
development  is  a  link,  equally  exquisite  and 
adequate,  between  mind  and  mind,  a  system 
by  which  men  approach  one  another  with  sym- 
pathy and  enjoyment,  a  field  for  the  finest 
amenities  of  civilization,  for  the  keenest  and 


THE  LUXURY   OF   CONVERSATION  3 

most  intelligent  display  of  social  activity.  It 
is  also  our  solace,  our  inspiration,  and  our 
most  rational  pleasure.  It  is  a  duty  we  owe 
to  one  another ;  it  is  our  common  debt  to 
humanity.  "  God  has  given  us  tongues,"  writes 
Heine,  "  wherewith  we  may  say  pleasant  things 
to  our  neighbours."  To  refuse  a  service  so 
light,  so  sweet,  so  fruitful,  is  to  be  unworthy 
of  the  inheritance  of  the  ages. 

It  is  claimed  again,  by  critics  disposed  to 
be  pessimistic,  that  our  modern  development 
of  "  specialism "  is  prejudicial  to  good  con- 
versation. A  man  devoted  to  one  subject  can 
seldom  talk  well  upon  any  other.  Unless  his 
companions  share  his  tastes  and  his  knowledge, 
he  must  —  a  sad  alternative  —  either  lecture  or 
be  still.  There  are  people  endowed  with  such 
a  laudable  thirst  for  information  that  they 
relish  lectures,  —  professional  and  gratuitous. 
They  enjoy  themselves  most  when  they  are 
being  instructed.  They  are  eager  to  form  an 
audience.  Such  were  the  men  and  women  who 
experienced  constant  disappointment  because 
Mr.  Browning,  a  specialist  of  high  standing, 
declined  to  discuss  his  specialty.  No  side-lights 


4  COMPROMISES 

upon  "  Sordello  "  could  be  extracted  from  him. 
We  realize  how  far  the  spirit  of  the  lecture  had 
intruded  upon  the  spirit  of  conversation  forty 
years  ago,  when  Mr.  Bagehot  admitted  that, 
with  good  modern  talkers,  "  the  effect  seems  to 
be  produced  by  that  which  is  stated,  and  not  by 
the  manner  in  which  it  is  stated," —  a  reversal  of 
ancient  rules.  We  are  aware  of  its  still  further 
encroachment  when  we  see  a  little  book  by 
M.  Charles  Rozan,  characteristically  christened 
"  Petites  Ignorances  de  la  Conversation,"  and 
find  it  full  of  odds  and  ends  of  information,  of 
phrases,  allusions,  quotations,  facts,  —  all  the 
minute  details  which  are  presumably  embodied 
in  the  talk  of  educated  men.  The  world  to-day 
devoutly  believes  that  everything  can  be  taught 
and  learned.  When  we  have  been  shown  how 
a  thing  is  done,  we  can  of  course  do  it.  There 
are  even  little  manuals  composed  with  serious 
simplicity,  the  object  of  which  is  to  enable  us 
to  meet  specialists  on  their  own  grounds ;  to 
discuss  art  with  artists,  literature  with  authors, 
politics  with  politicians,  science  with  scientists, 
—  the  last,  surely,  a  dangerous  experiment. 
"  Conversation,"  I  read  in  one  of  these  en- 


THE  LUXURY   OF   CONVERSATION  5 

chanting  primers,  "  cannot  be  entirely  learned 
from  books," —  a  generous  admission  in  a  day 
given  over  to  the  worship  of  print. 

But  in  good  truth,  the  contagious  ardour, 
the  urbane  freedom  of  the  spoken  word  lift  it 
immeasurably  from  the  regions  of  pen  and 
ink.  Those  "  shy  revelations  of  affinity,"  which 
now  and  then  open  to  the  reader  sweet  vistas 
of  familiarity  and  friendship,  are  frequent,  al- 
luring, persuasive,  in  well-ordered  speech.  It 
is  not  what  we  learn  in  conversation  that  en- 
riches us.  It  is  the  elation  that  comes  of  swift 
contact  with  tingling  currents  of  thought.  It 
is  the  opening  of  our  mental  pores,  and  the 
stimulus  of  marshaling  our  ideas  in  words,  of 
setting  them  forth  as  gallantly  and  as  gra- 
ciously as  we  can.  "  A  language  long  employed 
by  a  delicate  and  critical  society,"  says  Mr. 
Bagehot,  "  is  a  treasure  of  dexterous  felicities ; " 
and  the  recognition  of  these  felicities,  the  grad- 
ing of  terms,  the  enlarging  of  a  narrow  and 
stupid  vocabulary  make  the  charm  of  civilized 
social  contact.  Discussion  without  asperity, 
sympathy  without  fusion,  gayety  unracked  by 
too  abundant  jests,  mental  ease  in  approaching 


6  COMPROMISES 

one  another,  —  these  are  the  things  which  give 
a  pleasant  smoothness  to  the  rough  edge  of 
life. 

So  much  has  been  said  about  good  talkers, 
—  brilliant  soloists  for  the  most  part,  —  and 
so  little  about  good  talk !  So  much  has  been 
said  about  good  listeners,  and  so  little  about 
the  interchange  of  thought !  "  Silent  people 
never  spoil  company,"  remarked  Lord  Chester- 
field ;  but  even  this  negative  praise  was  prob- 
ably due  to  the  type  of  silence  with  which  he 
was  best  acquainted,  —  a  habit  of  sparing 
speech,  not  the  muffled  stillness  of  genuine 
and  hopeless  incapacity.  A  man  who  listens 
because  he  has  nothing  to  say  can  hardly  be  a 
source  of  inspiration.  The  only  listening  that 
counts  is  that  of  the  talker  who  alternately 
absorbs  and  expresses  ideas.  Sainte-Beuve 
says  of  Fontenelle  that,  while  he  had  neither 
tears  nor  laughter,  he  smiled  at  wit,  never  inter- 
rupted, was  never  excited,  nor  ever  in  a  hurry 
to  speak.  These  are  endearing  traits.  They 
embody  much  of  the  art  of  conversation.  But 
they  are  as  remote  from  unadorned  silence  as 
from  unconsidered  loquacity. 


THE  LUXURY   OF   CONVERSATION  1 

The  same  distinction  may  be  drawn  between 
the  amenity  which  forbids  bickering,  and  the 
flabbiness  which  has  neither  principles  to  up- 
hold, nor  arguments  with  which  to  uphold 
them.  Hazlitt's  counsel,  "You  should  prefer 
the  opinion  of  the  company  to  your  own,"  is 
good  in  the  main,  but  it  can  easily  be  pushed 
too  far.  Proffered  by  a  man  who  bristled  with 
opinions  which  he  never  wearied  of  defending, 
it  is  perhaps  more  interesting  than  persuasive. 
If  everybody  floated  with  the  tide  of  talk,  pla- 
cidity would  soon  end  in  stagnation.  It  is  the 
strong  backward  stroke  which  stirs  the  ripples, 
and  gives  animation  and  variety.  "Unison  is 
a  quality  altogether  obnoxious  in  conversa- 
tion," said  Montaigne,  who  was  at  least  as 
tolerant  as  Hazlitt  was  combative,  but  who 
dearly  loved  stout  words  from  honest  men. 
Dr.  Johnson,  we  know,  was  of  a  similar  way 
of  thinking.  He  scorned  polite  tepidity;  he 
hated  chatter;  he  loved  that  unfeeling  logic 
which  drives  mercilessly  to  its  goal.  No  man 
knew  better  than  he  the  unconvincing  na- 
ture of  argument.  He  had  too  often  thrust 
his  friends  from  the  fortress  of  sound  reason 


8  COMPROMISES 

which  they  were  not  strong  enough  to  hold. 
But  his  talk,  for  all  its  aggressiveness,  and  for 
all  its  tendency  to  negation,  was  real  talk  ;  not 
—  as  with  Coleridge  —  a  monologue,  nor  — 
as  with  Maeaulay  —  a  lecture.  He  did  not  in- 
fringe upon  other  people's  conversational  free- 
holds, and  he  was  not,  be  it  always  remem- 
bered, anecdotal.  The  man  who  lived  upon 
"  potted  stories  "  inspired  him  with  righteous 
antipathy. 

Perhaps  the  saddest  proof  of  intellectual 
inertia,  of  our  failure  to  meet  one  another  with 
ease  and  understanding,  is  the  tendency  to 
replace  conversation  by  story-telling.  It  is  no 
uncommon  thing  to  hear  a  man  praised  as  a 
good  talker,  when  he  is  really  a  good  raconteur. 
People  will  speak  complacently  of  a  "bril- 
liant dinner,"  at  which  strings  of  anecdotes, 
disconnected  and  illegitimate,  have  usurped  the 
field,  to  the  total  exclusion  of  ideas.  After  an 
entertainment  of  this  order  —  like  a  feast  of 
buns  and  barley  sugar  —  we  retire  with  men- 
tal indigestion  for  a  fortnight.  That  it  should 
be  relished  betrays  the  crudeness  of  social 
conditions.  "Of  all  the  bores,"  writes  De 


TEE  LUXURY   OF   CONVERSATION  9 

Quincey  with  unwonted  ill -temper,  "whom 
man  in  his  folly  hesitates  to  hang,  and  Heaven 
in  its  mysterious  wisdom  suffers  to  propagate 
his  species,  the  most  insufferable  is  the  teller 
of  good  stories."  This  is  a  hard  saying.  The 
story,  like  its  second  cousin  the  lie,  has  a 
sphere  of  usefulness.  It  is  a  help  in  moments 
of  emergency,  and  it  serves  admirably  to  illus- 
trate a  text.  But  it  is  not,  and  never  can  be, 
a  substitute  for  conversation.  People  equipped 
with  reason,  sentiment,  and  a  vocabulary 
should  have  something  to  talk  about,  some 
common  ground  on  which  they  can  meet,  and 
penetrate  into  one  another's  minds.  The  ex- 
quisite pleasure  of  interchanging  ideas,  of 
awakening  to  suggestions,  of  finding  sympathy 
and  companionship,  is  as  remote  from  the  lan- 
guid amusement  yielded  by  story-telling  as  a 
good  play  is  remote  from  the  bald  diversion  of 
the  music  hall. 

Something  to  talk  about  appears  to  be  the 
first  consideration.  The  choice  of  a  topic,  or 
rather  the  possession  of  a  topic  which  will 
bear  analysis  and  support  enthusiasm,  is  es- 
sential to  the  enjoyment  of  conversation.  We 


10  COMPROMISES 

cannot  go  far  along  a  stony  track.  Diderot 
observed  that  whenever  he  was  in  the  company 
of  men  and  women  who  were  reading  Richard- 
son's books,  either  privately  or  aloud,  the  talk 
was  sure  to  be  animated  and  interesting.  Some 
secret  springs  of  emotion  were  let  loose  by 
this  great  master  of  sentiment.  Our  ancestors 
allowed  themselves  a  wider  field  of  discussion 
than  we  are  now  in  the  habit  of  conceding ; 
but  after  all,  as  Stevenson  reminds  us,  "  it  is 
not  over  the  virtues  of  a  curate-and-tea-party 
novel  that  people  are  abashed  into  high  reso- 
lutions." We  may  not  covet  Socratic  discourses 
at  the  dinner  table,  but  neither  can  we  long 
sustain  what  has  been  sadly  and  significantly 
called  "  the  burden  of  conversation  "  on  the 
lines  adopted  by  William  the  Fourth,  who, 
when  he  felt  the  absolute  necessity  of  saying 
something,  asked  the  Duke  of  Devonshire 
where  he  meant  to  be  buried. 

The  most  perfect  and  pitiful  pictures  of  in- 
tercourse stripped  bare  of  interest  have  been 
given  us  in  Miss  Austen's  novels.  Reading 
them,  we  grow  sick  at  heart  to  think  what 
depths  of  experience  they  reflect,  what  hours  of 


THE  LUXURY   OF   CONVERSATION         11 

ennui  lie  back  of  every  page.  The  conversation 
of  the  ladies  after  Mrs.  John  Dashwood's  din- 
ner must  stand  forever  as  a  perfect  example 
of  sustained  stupidity,  of  that  almost  miracu- 
lous dulness  which  can  be  achieved  only  by 
"want  of  sense,  want  of  elegance,  want  of 
spirits,  and  want  of  temper."  Equal  to  it  in 
its  way  is  the  brief  description  of  Lady  Mid- 
dleton's  first  call  upon  the  Dashwoods. 

"  Conversation  was  not  lacking,  for  Sir 
John  was  very  chatty,  and  Lady  Middleton 
had  taken  the  wise  precaution  of  bringing 
with  her  their  eldest  child,  a  fine  little  boy 
about  six  years  old.  By  this  means  there  was 
one  subject  always  to  be  recurred  to  by  the 
ladies  in  case  of  extremity,  for  they  had  to  en- 
quire his  name  and  age,  admire  his  beauty, 
and  ask  him  questions  which  his  mother  an- 
swered for  him,  while  he  hung  about  her  and 
held  down  his  head,  to  the  great  surprise  of 
her  ladyship,  who  wondered  at  his  being  so 
shy  before  company,  as  he  could  make  noise 
enough  at  home.  On  every  formal  visit  a  child 
ought  to  be  of  the  party,  by  way  of  provision 
for  discourse.  In  the  present  case,  it  took  up 


12  COMPROMISES 

ten  minutes  to  determine  whether  the  boy 
were  most  like  his  father  or  mother,  and  in 
what  particular  he  resembled  either,  for  of 
course  everybody  differed,  and  everybody  was 
astonished  at  the  opinion  of  the  others." 

How  real  it  is !  How  many  of  us  have  lived 
through  similar  half-hours,  veiling  with  decent 
melancholy  the  impetuous  protest  of  our  souls  ! 

Charles  Greville  is  responsible  for  the  rather 
unusual  statement  that  a  dinner  at  which  all 
the  guests  are  fools  is  apt  to  be  as  agreeable  as 
a  dinner  at  which  all  the  guests  are  clever  men. 
The  fools,  he  says,  are  tolerably  sure  to  be  gay, 
and  the  clever  men  are  perfectly  sure  to  be 
heavy.  How  far  the  gayety  of  fools  is  an  enga- 
ging trait  it  might  be  difficult  to  decide  (there 
is  a  text  which  throws  some  doubt  upon  the  sub- 
ject), but  Greville  appears  to  have  suffered  a 
good  deal  from  the  ponderous  society  of  the 
learned.  We  are  struck  in  the  first  place  by 
the  very  serious  topics  which  made  the  table- 
talk  of  his  day.  Do  people  now  discuss  primo- 
geniture in  ancient  Rome  over  their  fish  and 
game  ?  It  sounds  almost  as  onerous  as  the  So- 
cratic  discourses.  Then  again  it  was  his  special 


THE  LUXURY   OF   CONVERSATION         13 

hardship  to  listen  to  the  dissertations  of  Macau- 
lay,  and  he  resented  this  infliction  with  all 
the  ardour  of  a  vain  and  accomplished  man. 
"Macaulay's  astonishing  knowledge  is  every 
moment  exhibited,"  he  writes  in  his  Memoirs, 
"  but  he  is  not  agreeable.  He  has  none  of  the 
graces  of  conversation,  none  of  the  exquisite 
tact  and  refinement  which  are  the  result  of  a 
felicitous  intuition,  or  of  a  long  acquaintance 
with  good  society.  .  .  .  His  information  is 
more  than  society  requires." 

The  last  line  is  a  master-stroke  of  criticism. 
It  embodies  all  that  goes  before  and  all  that 
follows,  —  for  Greville  airs  his  grievance  at 
length,  —  and  it  is  admirably  illustrated  in  his 
account  of  that  famous  evening  at  Holland 
House,  when  Lady  Holland,  in  captious  mood, 
rebelled  against  a  course  of  instruction.  Some- 
body having  chanced  to  mention  Sir  Thomas 
Munro,  the  hostess  rashly  admitted  that  she  had 
never  heard  of  him,  whereupon  Macaulay  "  ex- 
plained all  he  had  said,  done,  written,  or  thought, 
and  vindicated  his  claim  to  the  title  of  a  great 
man,  till  Lady  Holland,  getting  bored,  said  she 
had  had  enough  of  Sir  Thomas,  and  would  hear 


14  COMPROMISES 

no  more.  This  might  have  dashed  and  silenced 
an  ordinary  talker  ;  but  to  Macaulay  it  was  no 
more  than  replacing  a  book  upon  the  shelf,  and 
he  was  just  as  ready  as  ever  to  open  on  any  other 
topic."  The  Fathers  of  the  Church  were  next 
discussed  (it  was  not  a  frivolous  company), 
and  Macaulay  at  once  called  to  mind  a  sermon 
of  Saint  Chrysostom's  hi  praise  of  the  Bishop 
of  Antioch.  "  He  proceeded  to  give  us  the  sub- 
stance of  this  sermon  till  Lady  Holland  got 
tired  of  the  Fathers,  and  put  her  extinguisher 
on  Chrysostom  as  she  had  done  on  Munro. 
Then  with  a  sort  of  derision,  and  as  if  to  have 
the  pleasure  of  puzzling  Macaulay,  she  turned 
to  him  and  said  :  '  Pray  what  was  the  origin  of 
a  doll  ?  When  were  dolls  first  mentioned  in 
history?  '  Macaulay,  however,  was  just  as  much 
up  in  dolls  as  in  the  Fathers,  and  instantly  re- 
plied that  the  Roman  children  had  their  dolls, 
which  they  offered  to  Venus  when  they  grew 
older.  He  quoted  Persius,  — 

'  Veneri  donatae  a  virgine  puppae,' 

and  I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  if  he  had 
been  allowed  to  proceed,  he  would  have  told 


THE  LUXURY   OF   CONVERSATION         15 

us  who  was  the  Chenevix  of  ancient  Eome, 
and  the  name  of  the  first  baby  that  ever 
handled  a  doll." 

This  was  indeed  more  information  than  so- 
ciety required.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Syd- 
ney Smith,  perhaps  the  most  charming  talker 
of  his  day,  was  quickly  silenced  by  such  an 
avalanche  of  words,  and  sat  mute  and  limp  in 
the  historian's  company.  Upon  one  occasion 
Greville  went  to  visit  the  Marquis  of  Lans- 
downe  at  Bowood,  and  found  Macaulay  among 
the  guests.  "  It  was  wonderful  how  quiet  the 
house  seemed  after  he  had  gone,"  comments 
the  diarist  grimly,  "  and  it  was  not  less  agree- 
able." 

That  a  rude  invasion  of  the  field  is  fatal  to 
the  enjoyment  of  intercourse  we  know  from 
the  sentiment  of  revolt  expressed  on  every 
side.  How  little  the  people  who  heard  Mme. 
de  Stael's  brilliant  conversation  appear  to  have 
relished  the  privilege!  Mackintosh  admitted 
that  she  was  agreeable  in  a  tete-a-tete,  but  too 
much  for  a  general  assembly.  Heine  hated 
her,  as  a  hurricane  in  petticoats.  "  She  hears 
but  little,  and  never  the  truth,  because  she  is 


16  COMPROMISES 

always  talking."  Byron,  who  felt  a  genuine 
admiration  for  her  cleverness,  and  was  grate- 
ful for  her  steadfast  friendship,  confessed  rue- 
fully that  she  overwhelmed  him  with  words, 
buried  him  beneath  glittering  snow  and  non- 
sense. The  art  of  being  amusing  in  a  lovable 
way  was  not  hers ;  yet  this  is  essentially  the 
art  which  lifted  French  conversation  to  its 
highest  level,  which  made  it  famous  three 
hundred  years  ago,  and  which  has  preserved  it 
ever  since  as  a  rational  and  engaging  occupa- 
tion. A  page  of  history  lies  revealed  and  elu- 
cidated in  Saint-Simon's  little  sentence  anent 
Mme.  de  Maintenon's  fashion  of  speech.  "  Her 
language  was  gentle,  exact,  well  chosen,  and 
naturally  eloquent  and  brief." 

No  wonder  she  reigned  long.  Eloquent  and 
brief !  What  a  magnificent  "  blend "  !  How 
persuasive  the  "  well-chosen  "  words,  immacu- 
lately free  from  harsh  emphasis  and  the  femi- 
nine fault  of  iteration!  Who  would  not  be 
influenced  by  a  woman  who  talked  always  well, 
and  never  too  much ;  who,  knowing  the  value 
of  flattery,  administered  it  with  tact  and  moder- 
ation ;  and  who  shrank  instinctively  from  the 


THE   LUXURY   OF   CONVERSATION         17 

exaggerated  terms  which  destroy  balance  and 
invite  defeat?  From  the  reign  of  Louis  the 
Fourteenth  to  the  Ee volution,  conversation  was 
cultivated  in  France  with  intelligent  assiduity. 
Its  place  in  the  fabric  of  civilization  was  clearly 
understood.  No  time  was  begrudged  to  its  de- 
velopment, no  labour  was  spared  to  its  perfect- 
ing. Mr.  Henry  James  is  of  the  opinion  that 
it  flowered  brilliantly  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  "  This  was  surely,"  he 
says,  "  in  France  at  least,  the  age  of  good  so- 
ciety, the  period  when  the  right  people  made 
haste  to  be  born  in  time.  The  sixty  years  that 
preceded  the  Revolution  were  the  golden  age 
of  fireside  talk,  and  of  those  amenities  that 
are  due  to  the  presence  of  women  in  whom 
the  social  art  is  both  instinctive  and  acquired. 
The  women  of  that  period  were,  above  all, 
good  company.  The  fact  is  attested  in  a  thou- 
sand documents.  Chenonceaux  offered  a  per- 
fect setting  to  free  conversation  ;  and  infinite 
joyous  discourse  must  have  mingled  with  the 
liquid  murmur  of  the  Cher." 

"  Joyous  discourse  "  is  a  beguiling  phrase. 
It  carries  with  it  the  echo  of  laughter  long 


18  COMPROMISES 

since  silenced,  —  light  laughter  following  the 
light  words,  so  swiftly  spoken,  yet  so  surely 
placed.  The  time  was  coming  fast  when  this 
smooth  graciousness  of  speech  would  inspire 
singular  mistrust,  and  when  Rousseau  —  ar- 
dently embracing  nature  —  would  write  of  the 
"  fine  and  delicate  irony  called  politeness,  which 
gives  so  much  ease  and  pliability  to  the  inter- 
course of  civilized  man,  enabling  him  to  as- 
sume the  appearance  of  every  virtue  without 
the  reality  of  one."  Later  on,  illusions  being 
dispelled,  the  painful  discovery  was  made  that 
the  absence  of  politeness  does  not  necessarily 
imply  the  presence  of  virtue,  and  that  taci- 
turnity may  be  wholly  disassociated  with  the 
truth.  We  owe  to  one  another  all  the  wit  and 
good  humour  we  can  command ;  and  nothing 
so  clears  our  mental  vistas  as  sympathetic  and 
intelligent  conversation.  It  can  never  languish 
in  an  age  like  ours,  teeming  with  new  in- 
terests widely  shared,  and  with  new  wonders 
widely  known.  We  must  talk,  because  we  have 
so  much  to  talk  about ;  and  we  ought  to  talk 
well,  because  our  inspirations  are  of  a  noble 
order.  Each  new  discovery  made  by  science, 


THE  LUXURY   OF   CONVERSATION         19 

each  fresh  emotion  awakened  by  contempora- 
neous history,  each  successive  pleasure  yielded 
by  literature  or  by  art  is  a  spur  to  rational 
speech.  These  things  are  our  common  heritage, 
and  we  share  them  in  common,  through  the 
medium  of  the  aptly  spoken  word. 


THE   GAYETY  OF   LIFE 

Grief  is  the  sister  of  doubt  and  ill-temper,  and,  beyond 
all  spirits,  destroyeth  man.  —  Shepherd  of  Hermas. 

IN  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  an  in- 
genious gentleman,  Mr.  James  Beresford,  Fel- 
low of  Merton  College,  Oxford,  diverted  himself 
and  —  let  us  hope  —  his  friends,  by  drawing 
up  and  publishing  an  exhaustive  list  of  the 
minor  miseries  of  life.  It  is  a  formidable 
document,  realistic  in  character,  and  ill  calcu- 
lated to  promote  the  spirit  of  content.  No  one 
would  ever  imagine  that  so  many  disagreeable 
things  could  happen  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
existence,  until  the  possibilities  of  each  and 
every  one  are  plainly  and  pitilessly  defined. 
Some  of  these  possibilities  have  passed  away 
in  the  hundred  years  that  lie  between  King 
George's  day  and  ours ;  but  others  remain  for 
our  better  discipline  and  subjection.  Political 
discussions  at  the  dinner-table  rank  high  among 
Mr.  Beresford's  grievances  ;  also  weak  tea,  — 
"  an  infusion  of  balm,  sage,  and  rosemary,"  he 


THE   GAYETY   OF  LIFE  21 

calls  it, — and  "being  expected  to  be  interested 
in  a  baby." 

A  great  deal  of  modern  literature,  and  not 
a  little  modern  conversation,  closely  resemble 
this  unhappy  gentleman's  "  black  list."  There 
is  the  same  earnest  desire  to  point  out  what 
we  would  rather  not  observe.  Life  is  so  full 
of  miseries,  minor  and  major ;  they  press  so 
close  upon  us  at  every  step  of  the  way,  that  it 
is  hardly  worth  while  to  call  one  another's  at- 
tention to  their  presence.  People  who  do  this 
thing  on  a  more  imposing  scale  than  Mr. 
Beresford  are  spoken  of  respectfully  as  "  un- 
faltering disciples  of  truth,"  or  as  "  incapable 
of  childish  self-delusion,"  or  as  "  looking  with 
clear  eyes  into  life's  bitter  mysteries ;  "  whereas 
in  reality  they  are  merely  dwelling  on  the 
obvious,  and  the  obvious  is  the  one  thing  not 
worth  consideration.  We  are  all  painfully 
aware  of  the  seamy  side,  because  we  are 
scratched  by  the  seams.  What  we  want  to 
contemplate  is  the  beauty  and  the  smoothness 
of  that  well-ordered  plan  which  it  is  so  difficult 
for  us  to  discern.  When  Burke  counselled  a 
grave  and  anxious  gentleman  to  "  live  pleas- 


22  COMPROMISES 

ant,"  he  was  turning  him  aside  from  the  ordi- 
nary aspects  of  existence. 

There  is  a  charming  and  gracious  dogma 
of  Roman  Catholicism  which  would  have  us 
believe  that  all  good  deeds  and  holy  prayers 
make  up  a  spiritual  treasury,  a  public  fund, 
from  which  are  drawn  consolation  for  the 
church  suffering,  and  strength  for  the  church 
militant.  A  similar  treasury  (be  it  reverently 
spoken)  holds  for  us  all  the  stored-up  laughter 
of  the  world,  and  from  it  comes  human  help 
in  hours  of  black  dejection.  Whoever  enriches 
this  exchequer  should  be  held  a  benefactor  of 
his  race.  Whoever  robs  it  —  no  matter  what 
heroic  motives  he  may  advance  in  extenuation 
of  the  deed  —  has  sinned  heavily  against  his 
fellow  men.  For  the  gayety  of  life,  like  the 
-beauty  and  the  moral  worth  of  life,  is  a  saving 
grace,  which  to  ignore  is  folly,  and  to  destroy 
is  crime.  There  is  no  more  than  we  need,  — 
there  is  barely  enough  to  go  round.  If  we 
waste  our  little  share,  if  we  extinguish  our  lit- 
tle light,  the  treasury  is  that  much  poorer, 
and  our  neighbour  walks  in  gloom. 

The  thinkers  of  the  world  should  by  rights 


THE   GAYETY   OF  LIFE  23 

be  the  guardians  of  the  world's  mirth;  but 
thinking  is  a  sorry  business,  and  a  period  of 
critical  reflection,  following  a  period  of  vigor- 
ous and  engrossing  activity,  is  apt  to  breed 
the  "  plaintive  pessimist,"  whose  self-satisfac- 
tion is  disproportionate  to  his  worth.  Litera- 
ture, we  are  assured  by  its  practitioners,  "  ex- 
ists to  please ; "  but  it  has  some  doubtful 
methods  of  imparting  pleasure.  If,  indeed,  we 
sit  down  to  read  books  on  degeneracy  and 
kindred  topics,  we  have  no  reason  to  com- 
plain of  what  we  find  in  them.  It  is  not 
through  such  gates  as  these  that  we  seek  an 
escape  from  mortality.  But  why  should  poets 
and  essayists  and  novelists  be  so  determin- 
edly depressing?  Why  should  "the  earnest 
prophetic  souls  who  tear  the  veil  from  our 
illusory  national  prosperity  "  —  I  quote  from 
a  recent  review  —  be  so  warmly  praised  for 
their  vandalism  ?  Heaven  knows  they  are  al- 
ways tearing  the  veil  from  something,  until 
there  is  hardly  a  rag  left  for  decency.  Yet 
there  are  few  nudities  so  objectionable  as  the 
naked  truth.  Granted  that  our  habit  of  exag- 
gerating the  advantages  of  modern  civilization 


24  COMPROMISES 

and  of  modern  culture  does  occasionally  pro- 
voke and  excuse  plain  speaking,  there  is  no 
need  of  a  too  merciless  exposure,  a  too  insulting 
refutation  of  these  agreeable  fallacies.  If  we 
think  ourselves  well  off,  we  are  well  off.  If, 
dancing  in  chains,  we  believe  ourselves  free,  we 
are  free,  and  he  is  not  our  benefactor  who  weighs 
our  shackles.  Reformers  have  unswervingly 
and  unpityingly  decreased  the  world's  content 
that  they  might  better  the  world's  condition. 
The  first  part  of  their  task  is  quickly  done. 
The  second  halts  betimes.  Count  Tolstoi  has, 
with  the  noblest  intentions,  made  many  a  light 
step  heavy,  and  many  a  gay  heart  sad. 

As  for  poets  and  novelists,  their  sin  is  un- 
provoked and  unpardonable.  Story-telling  is 
not  a  painful  duty.  It  is  an  art  which,  in  its 
best  development,  adds  immeasurably  to  the 
conscious  pleasure  of  life.  It  is  an  anodyne  in 
hours  of  suffering,  a  rest  in  hours  of  weariness, 
and  a  stimulus  in  hours  of  health  and  joyous 
activity.  It  can  be  made  a  vehicle  for  impart- 
ing instruction,  for  destroying  illusions,  and 
for  dampening  high  spirits ;  but  these  results, 
though  well  thought  of  in  our  day,  are  not 


THE   GAYETY  OF  LIFE  25 

essential  to  success.  Want  and  disease  are 
mighty  factors  in  life ;  but  they  have  never 
yet  inspired  a  work  of  art.  The  late  Professor 
Boyesen  has  indeed  recorded  his  unqualified 
delight  at  the  skill  with  which  Russian  novel- 
ists describe  the  most  unpleasant  maladies. 
He  said  enthusiastically  that,  after  reading 
one  of  these  masterpieces,  he  felt  himself 
developing  some  of  the  very  symptoms  which 
had  been  so  accurately  portrayed ;  but  to  many 
readers  this  would  be  scant  recommendation. 
It  is  not  symptoms  we  seek  in  stories.  The 
dullest  of  us  have  imagination  enough  to  in- 
vent them  for  ourselves. 

"Poverty,"  said  old  Robert  Burton,  "is  a 
most  odious  calling,"  and  it  has  not  grown  any 
more  enjoyable  in  the  past  three  hundred  years. 
Nothing  is  less  worth  while  than  to  idealize  its 
discomforts,  unless  it  be  to  sourly  exaggerate 
them.  There  is  no  life  so  hard  as  to  be  without 
compensations,  especially  for  those  who  take 
short  views ;  and  the  view  of  poverty  seldom 
goes  beyond  the  needs  of  the  hour  and  their 
fulfilment.  But  there  has  arisen  of  late  years 
a  school  of  writers  —  for  the  most  part  Eng- 


26  COMPROMISES 

lish,  though  we  have  our  representatives  — 
who  paint  realistically  the  squalor  and  wretch- 
edness of  penury,  without  admitting  into  their 
pictures  one  ray  of  the  sunshine  that  must 
sometimes  gild  the  dreariest  hovel  or  the 
meanest  street.  A  notable  example  of  this 
black  art  was  Mr.  George  Gissing,  whose 
novels  are  too  powerful  to  be  ignored,  and  too 
depressing  to  be  forgotten.  The  London  of  the 
poor  is  not  a  cheerful  place ;  it  is  perhaps  the 
most  cheerless  place  in  Christendom ;  but  this 
is  the  way  it  appeared  in  Mr.  Gissing's  eyes 
when  he  was  compelled  to  take  a  suburban 
train :  — 

"  Over  the  pest-stricken  region  of  East 
London,  sweltering  in  sunlight  which  served 
only  to  reveal  the^  intimacies  of  abomination  ; 
across  miles  of  a  city  of  the  damned,  such  as 
thought  never  conceived  before  this  age  of 
ours ;  above  streets  swarming  with  a  nameless 
populace,  cruelly  exposed  by  the  unwonted 
light  of  heaven ;  stopping  at  stations  which 
it  crushes  the  heart  to  think  should  be  the 
destination  of  any  mortal,  —  the  train  made 
its  way  at  length  beyond  the  outmost  limits  of 


THE   GAYETY   OF  LIFE  27 

dread,  and  entered  upon  a  land  of  level  mead- 
ows, of  hedges  and  trees,  of  crops  and  cattle." 

Surely  this  is  a  trifle  strained.  The  "  name- 
less populace  "  would  be  not  a  little  surprised 
to  hear  itself  described  with  such  dark  elo- 
quence. I  remember  once  encountering  in  a 
third-class  English  railway  carriage  a  butcher- 
boy  —  he  confided  to  me  his  rank  and  profes- 
sion —  who  waxed  boastful  over  the  size  and 
wealth  of  London.  "  It 's  the  biggest  city  in 
the  world,  that 's  wot  it  is ;  it 's  got  five  mil- 
lions of  people  in  it,  that 's  wot  it 's  got ;  and 
I  'm  a  Londoner,  that 's  wot  I  am,"  he  said, 
glowing  with  pride  that  was  not  without 
merit  in  one  of  mean  estate.  The  "  city  of  the 
damned"  appeared  a  city  of  the  gods  to  this 
young  son  of  poverty. 

Such  books  sin  against  the  gayety  of   life. 

All  the  earth  round, 
If  a  man  bear  to  have  it  so, 
Things  which  might  vex  him  shall  be  found  ; 

and  there  is  no  form  of  sadness  more  wasteful 
than  that  which  is  bred  of  a  too  steadfast 
consideration  of  pain.  It  is  not  generosity  of 
spirit  which  feeds  this  mood.  The  sorrowful 


28  COMPROMISES 

acceptance  of  life's  tragedies  is  of  value  only 
when  it  prompts  us  to  guard  more  jealously, 
or  to  impart  more  freely,  life's  manifold  bene- 
factions. Mr.  Pater  has  subtly  defined  the 
mental  attitude  which  is  often  mistaken  for 
sympathy,  but  which  is  a  mere  ineffectual 
yielding  to  depression  over  the  sunless  scenes 
of  earth. 

"  He  "  —  Carl  of  Rosenmold  —  "  had  fits  of 
the  gloom  of  other  people,  their  dull  passage 
through  and  exit  from  the  world,  the  threadbare 
incidents  of  their  lives,  their  dismal  funerals, 
which,  unless  he  drove  them  away  immediately 
by  strenuous  exercise,  settled  into  a  gloom  more 
properly  his  own.  Yet,  at  such  times,  outward 
things  would  seem  to  concur  unkindly  in  deep- 
ening the  mental  shadows  about  him." 

This  is  precisely  the  temper  which  finds  ex- 
pression in  much  modern  verse.  Its  perpetra- 
tors seem  wrapped  in  endless  contemplation  of 
other  people's  gloom,  until,  having  absorbed  all 
they  can  hold,  they  relieve  their  oppressed  souls 
by  unloading  it  in  song.  Women  are  espe- 
cially prone  to  mournful  measures,  and  I  am 
not  without  sympathy  for  that  petulant  English 


THE    GAYETY   OF  LIFE  29 

critic  who  declined  to  read  their  poetry  on  the 
plea  that  it  was  "  all  dirges."  But  men  can  be 
mourners,  too,  and  — 

In  all  the  endless  road  you  tread 
There 's  nothing  but  the  night, 

is  too  often  the  burden  of  their  verse,  the  unso- 
licited assurance  with  which  they  cheer  us  on 
our  way.  We  do  not  believe  them,  of  course, 
except  in  moments  of  dejection  ;  but  these  are 
just  the  moments  in  which  we  would  like  to 
hear  something  different.  When  our  share  of 
gayety  is  running  pitifully  low,  and  the  sparks 
of  joy  are  dying  on  life's  hearth,  we  have  no 
courage  to  laugh  down  the  voices  of  those  who, 
"  wilfully  living  in  sadness,  speak  but  the  truths 
thereof." 

Hazlitt,  who  was  none  too  happy,  but  who 
strove  manfully  for  happiness,  used  to  say  that 
he  felt  a  deeper  obligation  to  Northcote  than  to 
any  of  his  other  friends  who  had  done  him  far 
greater  service,  because  Northcote's  conversa- 
tion was  invariably  gay  and  agreeable.  "  I  never 
ate  nor  drank  with  him ;  but  I  have  lived  on 
his  words  with  undiminished  relish  ever  since 
I  can  remember  5  and  when  I  leave  him,  I  come 


30  COMPROMISES 

out  into  the  street  with  feelings  lighter  and 
more  ethereal  than  I  have  at  any  other  time." 
Here  is  a  debt  of  friendship  worth  recording, 
and  blither  hearts  than  Hazlitt's  have  treasured 
similar  benefactions.  Mr.  Robert  Louis  Ste- 
venson gladly  acknowledged  his  gratitude  to 
people  who  set  him  smiling  when  they  came  his 
way,  or  who  smiled  themselves  from  sheer  cheer- 
fulness of  heart.  They  never  knew  —  not  pos- 
ing as  philanthropists  —  how  far  they  helped 
him  on  his  road ;  but  he  knew,  and  has  thanked 
them  in  words  not  easily  forgotten :  — 

"  There  is  no  duty  we  so  much  underrate  as 
the  duty  of  being  happy.  By  being  happy  we 
sow  anonymous  benefits  upon  the  world,  which 
remain  unknown  even  to  ourselves,  or,  when 
they  are  disclosed,  surprise  nobody  so  much  as 
the  benefactor.  ...  A  happy  man  or  woman 
is  a  better  thing  to  find  than  a  five-pound  note. 
He  or  she  is  a  radiating  focus  of  good-will; 
and  their  entrance  into  a  room  is  as  though 
another  candle  had  been  lighted." 

There  is  little  doubt  that  the  somewhat  in- 
discriminate admiration  lavished  upon  Mr.  Ste- 
venson himself  was  due  less  to  his  literary  than 


THE    GAYETY   OF  LIFE  31 

to  his  personal  qualities.  People  loved  him,  not 
because  he  was  an  admirable  writer,  but  because 
he  was  a  cheerful  consumptive.  There  has  been 
far  too  much  said  about  his  ill  health,  and  no- 
thing is  so  painful  to  contemplate  as  the  lack 
of  reserve  on  the  part  of  relatives  and  executors 
which  thrusts  every  detail  of  a  man's  life  be- 
fore the  public  eye.  It  provokes  maudlin  senti- 
ment on  the  one  side,  and  ungracious  asperity 
on  the  other.  But,  in  Mr.  Stevenson's  case, 
silence  is  hard  to  keep.  He  was  a  sufferer  who 
for  many  years  increased  the  gayety  of  life. 

Genius  alone  can  do  this  on  a  large  scale  ; 
but  everybody  can  do  it  on  a  little  one.  Our 
safest  guide  is  the  realization  of  a  hard  truth, 
—  that  we  are  not  privileged  to  share  our 
troubles  with  other  people.  If  we  could  make 
up  our  minds  to  spare  our  friends  all  details 
of  ill  health,  of  money  losses,  of  domestic  an- 
noyances, of  altercations,  of  committee  work, 
of  grievances,  provocations,  and  anxieties,  we 
should  sin  less  against  the  world's  good-humour. 
It  may  not  be  given  us  to  add  to  the  treasury  of 
mirth ;  but  there  is  considerable  merit  in  not 
robbing  it.  I  have  read  that  "  the  most  objec- 


32  COMPROMISES 

tionable  thing  in  the  American  manner  is  exces- 
sive cheerfulness,"  and  I  would  like  to  believe 
that  so  pardonable  a  fault  is  the  worst  we  have 
to  show.  It  is  not  our  mission  to  depress,  and 
one  recalls  with  some  satisfaction  Saint-Simon's 
remark  anent  Madame  de  Maintenon,  whom  he 
certainly  did  not  love.  Courtiers  less  astute 
wondered  at  the  enduring  charm  which  this  mid- 
dle-aged woman,  neither  handsome  nor  witty, 
had  for  her  royal  husband.  Saint-Simon  held 
the  clue.  It  was  her  "  decorous  gayety  "  which 
soothed  Louis's  tired  heart.  "  She  so  governed 
her  humours  that,  at  all  times  and  under  all 
circumstances,  she  preserved  her  cheerfulness 
of  demeanour." 

There  is  little  profit  in  asking  ourselves  or 
others  whether  life  be  a  desirable  possession. 
It  is  thrust  upon  us,  without  concurrence  on  our 
part.  Unless  we  can  abolish  compulsory  birth, 
our  relish  for  the  situation  is  not  a  controlling 
force.  "  Every  child,"  we  are  told,  "  is  sent  to 
school  a  hundred  years  before  he  is  born  ;  "  but 
he  can  neither  profit  by  his  schooling  nor  re- 
fuse his  degree.  Here  we  are  in  a  world  which 
holds  much  pain  and  many  pleasures,  oceans  of 


THE    GAYETY   OF  LIFE  33 

tears  and  echoes  of  laughter.  Our  position  is 
not  without  dignity,  because  we  can  endure ; 
and  not  without  enjoyment,  because  we  can  be 
merry.  Gayety,  to  be  sure,  requires  as  much 
courage  as  endurance  ;  but  without  courage  the 
battle  of  life  is  lost.  "  To  reckon  dangers  too 
curiously,  to  hearken  too  intently  for  the  threat 
that  runs  through  all  the  winning  music  of  the 
world,  to  hold  back  the  hand  from  the  rose  be- 
cause of  the  thorn,  and  from  life  because  of 
death,  —  this  is  to  be  afraid  of  Pan." 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW 

Look  contentedly  upon  the  scattered  difference  of  things. 
— SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE. 

FICTION  is  the  only  field  in  which  women 
started  abreast  with  men,  and  have  not  lagged 
far  behind.  Their  success,  though  in  no  wise 
brilliant,  has  been  sufficiently  assured  to  call 
forth  a  vast  deal  of  explanation  from  male 
critics,  who  deem  it  necessary  to  offer  reasons 
for  what  is  not  out  of  reason,  to  elucidate 
what  can  never  be  a  mystery.  Not  very  many 
years  ago  a  contributor  to  the  "  Westminster 
Review  "  asserted  seriously  that  "  the  greater 
affectionateness "  of  women  enabled  them  to 
write  stories,  and  that  "  the  domestic  experi- 
ences, which  form  the  bulk  of  their  know- 
ledge, find  an  appropriate  place  in  novels. 
The  very  nature  of  fiction  calls  for  that  pre- 
dominanee  of  sentiment  which  befits  the  femi- 
nine mind." 

It  is  not  easy,  however,  to  account  for  Miss 


THE  POINT  OF   VIEW  35 

Austen  and  Miss  Bronte,  for  George  Eliot 
and  George  Sand,  on  the  score  of  "  affection- 
ateness  "  and  domesticity.  The  quality  of  their 
work  has  won  for  them  and  for  their  succes- 
sors the  privilege  of  being  judged  by  men's 
standards,  and  of  being  forever  exempt  from 
that  fatal  word,  "  considering."  All  that  is 
left  of  the  half -gallant,  half -condescending  tone 
with  which  critics  indulgently  praised  "  Eve- 
lina "  is  a  well-defined  and  clearly  expressed 
sentiment  in  favour  of  women's  heroines,  and  a 
corresponding  reluctance  —  on  the  part  of  men 
at  least  —  to  tolerate  their  heroes.  Mr.  Hen- 
ley voiced  the  convictions  of  his  sex  when  he 
declared  his  readiness  to  accept,  "  with  the 
humility  of  ignorance,  and  something  of  the 
learner's  gratitude,"  all  of  George  Eliot's 
women,  "  from  Romola  down  to  Mrs.  Pullet " 
(up  to  Mrs.  Pullet,  one  would  rather  say), 
and  his  lively  mistrust  of  the  "  governesses  in 
revolt,"  whom  it  has  pleased  her  to  call  men. 
Heroes  of  the  divided  skirt,  every  one  of  them, 
was  his  verdict.  Deronda,  an  incarnation  of 
woman's  rights.  Tito,  an  improper  female  in 
breeches.  Silas  Marner,  a  good,  perplexed  old 


36  COMPROMISES 

maid.    Lydgate  alone  has  "  aught  of  the  true 
male  principle  about  him." 

This  is  a  matter  worthy  of  regard,  because 
the  charm  of  a  novel  is  based  largely  upon 
the  attraction  its  hero  has  for  women,  and  its 
heroine  for  men.  Incident,  dialogue,  the  de- 
velopment of  minor  characters,  —  these  things 
have  power  to  please;  but  the  enduring  tri- 
umph of  a  story  depends  upon  the  depth  of 
our  infatuation  for  somebody  that  figures  in 
it,  and  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  instinct  of  sex 
reigns  supreme.  Why  is  it  impossible  for  a 
man,  who  is  not  an  artist  or  an  art-critic,  to 
acknowledge  that  the  great  portraits  of  the 
world  are  men's  portraits?  Because  he  has 
given  his  heart  to  Mona  Lisa,  or  to  Rembrandt's 
Saskia,  or  to  some  other  beauty,  dead  and  gone. 
Why  do  we  find  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
that  it  is  invariably  a  man  who  expounds  the 
glory  of  Saint  Theresa,  and  a  woman  who 
piously  supplicates  Saint  Anthony  ?  The  same 
rule  holds  good  in  fiction.  Clarissa  Harlowe  has 
been  loved  as  ardently  as  Helen  of  Troy.  Mr. 
Saintsbury  gives  charming  expression  to  this 
truth  in  his  preface  to  "  Pride  and  Prejudice." 


TEE  POINT   OF   VIEW  37 

"  In  the  novels  of  the  last  hundred  years," 
he  says,  "there  are  vast  numbers  of  young 
ladies  with  whom  it  might  be  a  pleasure  to  fall 
in  love ;  there  are  at  least  five  with  whom,  as 
it  seems  to  me,  no  man  of  taste  and  spirit  can 
help  doing  so.  Their  names  are,  in  chrono- 
logical order,  Elizabeth  Bennet,  Diana  Vernon, 
Argemone  Lavington,  Beatrix  Esmond,  and 
Barbara  Grant.  I  should  have  been  most  in 
love  with  Beatrix  and  Argemone ;  I  should,  I 
think,  for  mere  occasional  companionship,  have 
preferred  Diana  and  Barbara  Grant.  But  to 
live  with  and  to  marry,  I  do  not  know  that 
any  one  of  the  four  can  come  into  competition 
with  Elizabeth." 

This  choice  little  literary  seraglio  is  by  no 
means  the  only  one  selected  with  infinite  care 
by  critics  too  large-minded  for  monogamy, 
while  passions  more  exclusive  burn  with  in- 
tenser  flame.  Of  Beatrix  Esmond  it  might  be 
said  that  Thackeray  was  the  only  man  who 
never  succumbed  to  her  charms.  Women  have 
been  less  wont  to  confess  their  infatuations, 
—  perhaps  for  lack  of  opportunity,  —  but  they 
have  cherished  in  their  hearts  a  long  succession 


38  COMPROMISES 

of  fictitious  heroes,  most  of  them  eminently  un- 
worthy of  regard.  We  know  how  they  puzzled 
and  distressed  poor  Richardson  by  their  pre- 
ference for  that  unpardonable  villain,  Lovelace, 
whom  honest  men  loathe.  Even  in  these  chill 
and  seemly  days  they  seek  some  semblance  of 
brutality.  The  noble,  self -abnegating  hero  has 
little  chance  with  them.  The  perplexed  hero 
has  even  less.  It  is  a  significant  circumstance 
that,  of  all  the  characters  upon  whom  Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward  has  lavished  her  careful  art, 
Helbeck  of  Bannisdale,  who  does  n't  know  the 
meaning  of  perplexity,  and  who  has  no  weak 
tolerance  for  other  people's  views,  makes  the 
sharpest  appeal  to  feminine  taste.  But  mascu- 
line taste  rejects  him. 

Rejects  him,  not  more  sharply,  perhaps, 
than  it  is  wont  to  reject  any  type  of  manhood 
put  forward  urgently  by  a  woman.  There  was 
a  time  when  Rochester  was  much  in  vogue,  and 
girls  young  enough  to  cherish  illusions  wove 
them  radiantly  around  that  masterful  lover 
who  wooed  in  the  fashion  of  the  Conqueror. 
But  men  looked  ever  askance  upon  his  vol- 
canic energies  and  emotions.  They  failed  to 


THE  POINT   OF   VIEW  39 

see  any  charm  in  his  rudeness,  and  they  re- 
sented his  lack  of  retenue.  Robust  candour  is 
a  quality  which  civilization  —  working  in  the 
interests  of  both  sexes  —  has  wisely  thought 
fit  to  discard.  Even  Mr.  Birrell,  who  is  dis- 
posed to  leniency  where  Charlotte  Bronte's  art 
is  concerned,  admits  that  while  Rochester  is 
undeniably  masculine,  and  not  a  governess  in 
revolt,  he  is  yet  "  man  described  by  woman," 
studied  from  the  outside  by  one  who  could  only 
surmise.  And  of  the  fierce  and  adorable  little 
professor,  the  "  sallow  tiger  "  who  is  the  crown- 
ing achievement  of  "  Villette,"  he  has  still 
more  serious  doubts.  "  Some  good  critics  there 
are  who  stick  to  it  that  in  his  heart  of  hearts 
Paul  Emanuel  was  a  woman." 

Does  this  mean  that  femininity,  backed  by 
genius,  cannot  grasp  the  impalpable  something 
which  is  the  soul  and  essence  of  masculinity? 
Because  then  it  follows  that  masculinity,  backed 
by  genius,  cannot  grasp  the  impalpable  some- 
thing which  is  the  soul  and  essence  of  femi- 
ninity. Such  a  limitation  has  never  yet  been 
recognized  and  deplored.  On  the  contrary, 
there  are  novelists,  like  Mr.  Hardy,  and  Mr. 


40  COMPROMISES 

George  Meredith,  and  Mr.  Henry  James,  who 
are  considered  to  know  a  great  deal  more 
about  women  than  women  know  about  them- 
selves, and  to  be  able  to  give  the  sex  some 
valuable  points  for  its  own  enlightenment. 
Just  as  Luini  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci  are  be- 
lieved to  have  grasped  the  subtleties  hidden 
deep  in  the  female  heart,  and  to  have  betrayed 
them  upon  their  imperishable  canvases  in  a 
lurking  smile  or  a  gleam  from  half-shut  eyes, 
so  Mr.  Meredith  and  Mr.  James  are  believed 
to  have  betrayed  these  feminine  secrets  in  the 
ruthless  pages  of  their  novels.  Mr.  Boyesen, 
for  example,  did  not  hesitate  to  say  that  no 
woman  could  have  drawn  a  character  like 
Diana  of  the  Crossways,  and  endowed  her  with 
"  that  nameless  charm,"  because  "  the  senti- 
ment that  feels  and  perceives  it  is  wholly 
masculine."  Why  should  not  this  rule  work 
both  ways,  and  a  nameless  charm  be  given  to 
some  complex  and  veracious  hero,  because  the 
sentiment  that  feels  and  perceives  it  is  wholly 
feminine?  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  strove  for 
just  such  a  triumph  in  her  portrait  of  Edward 
Manisty,  but  she  strove  in  vain.  Yet  if  the 


THE  POINT   OF    VIEW  41 

attraction  of  one  sex  for  the  other  be  mutual, 
why  should  it  enlighten  the  man  and  confuse 
the  woman  ?  Or  is  this  enlightenment  less  pen- 
etrating than  it  appears  ?  Perhaps  a  rare  per- 
fection in  recognizing  and  reproducing  detail 
may  be  mistaken  for  a  firm  grasp  upon  the 
whole. 

Certain  it  is  that  if  men  have  looked  with 
skepticism  at  the  types  of  manhood  presented 
with  so  much  ardour  by  female  novelists,  —  if 
they  have  voted  Rochester  a  brute,  and  Mr. 
Knightley  a  prig,  and  Robert  Elsmere  a  bore, 
and  Deronda  "  an  intolerable  kind  of  Grandi- 
son,"  —  women  in  their  turn  have  evinced 
resentment,  or  at  least  impatience,  at  the  atti- 
tude of  heroines  so  sweetly  glorified  by  men. 
Lady  Castlewood  is  a  notable  example.  How 
kindly  Thackeray  —  who  is  not  always  kind  — 
treats  this  "  tender  matron,"  this  "  fair  mis- 
tress "  of  the  admirable  Esmond  !  What  plea- 
sant adjectives,  "  gentlest,"  "  truest,"  "  loveli- 
est," he  has  ever  ready  at  her  service !  How 
frankly  he  forgives  faults  more  endearing 
than  virtues  to  the  masculine  mind  !  "  It  takes 
a  man,"  we  are  told,  "  to  forgive  Lady  Castle- 


42  COMPROMISES 

wood."  She  is  the  finest  and  most  reverent 
incarnation  of  what  men  conceive  to  be  purely 
feminine  traits.  In  a  world  that  belongs  to  its 
masters,  she  is  an  exquisite  appurtenance,  a 
possession  justly  prized.  In  a  world  shared 
—  albeit  somewhat  unevenly  —  by  men  and 
women,  she  seems  less  good  and  gracious. 
"  I  always  said  I  was  alone,"  cries  Beatrix 
sternly.  "  You  were  jealous  of  me  from  the 
time  I  sat  on  my  father's  knee."  And  the 
child's  eyes  saw  the  truth. 

It  has  been  claimed,  and  perhaps  with  jus- 
tice, that  the  irritation  provoked  by  Thackeray's 
virtuous  heroines  is  born  of  wounded  vanity. 
Mr.  Lang  observes  that  women  easily  pardon 
Becky  Sharp  and  Blanche  Amory,  but  never 
Amelia  Sedley  nor  Laura  Pendennis.  For  the 
matter  of  that,  men  easily  pardon  Mr.  Collins 
and  Mr.  Elton.  They  do  more  than  pardon, 
they  delight  in  these  incomparable  clerics,  and 
they  adore  Miss  Austen  for  having  created 
them.  Mr.  Saintsbury  vows  that  Mr.  Collins 
is  worthy  of  Fielding  or  Swift.  But  their  sen- 
timents towards  the  excellent  Edmund  Bertram, 
who  is  all  that  a  parson  should  be,  are  not 


THE  POINT   OF    VIEW  43 

wholly  unlike  the  sentiments  of  women  towards 
Amelia  Sedley,  who  is  all  that  a  wife  and  a 
mother  should  be ;  nor  are  they  ready  to  admit 
that  Mr.  Darcy  and  Mr.  Knightley  are  worthy 
of  Elizabeth  and  Emma.  Lord  Brabourne  has 
recorded  a  distinct  prejudice  against  Mr. 
Knightley,  on  the  ground  that  he  interferes  too 
much ;  yet  it  is  plain  that  Miss  Austen  con- 
sidered this  interference  as  a  masculine  prerog- 
ative, exercised  with  judgment  and  discretion. 
He  is  what  women  call  "  a  thorough  man,"  just 
as  Amelia  is  what  men  call  "  a  thorough  wo- 
man." Mr.  Lang  bravely  confesses  his  affec- 
tion for  her  on  this  very  score :  "  She  is  such  a 
thorough  woman."  It  evidently  does  not  occur 
to  him  to  doubt  Thackeray's  knowledge,  or 
his  own  knowledge,  of  the  sex. 

Around  Fielding's  heroines  the  battle  has 
raged  for  years.  These  kind-hearted,  sweet- 
tempered  creatures  have  been  very  charming 
in  men's  eyes.  Scott  loved  Sophia  Western  as 
if  she  had  been  his  own  daughter,  —  he  would 
have  treated  her  differently,  —  and  took  espe- 
cial pleasure  in  her  music,  in  the  way  she 
soothed  her  father  to  sleep  after  dinner  with 


44  COMPROMISES 

"  Saint  George,  he  is  for  England."  Sir  Walter 
and  Squire  Western  had  a  stirring  taste  in 
songs.  Dr.  Johnson  gave  his  allegiance  without 
reserve  to  Fielding's  Amelia.  He  read  the  in- 
ordinately long  novel  which  bears  her  name  at 
a  single  sitting,  and  he  always  honoured  her  as 
the  best  and  loveliest  of  her  sex,  —  this,  too,  at 
a  time  when  Clarissa  held  the  hearts  of  Chris- 
tendom in  her  keeping.  Amelia  Booth,  like 
Amelia  Sedley,  is  a  "  thorough  woman  ;  "  that 
is,  she  embodies  all  the  characteristics  which 
the  straightforward  vice  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury conceived  to  be  virtues  in  her  sex,  and 
which  provoke  the  envious  admiration  of  our 
own  less  candid  age.  "Fair,  and  kind,  and 
good,"  so  runs  the  verdict.  "  What  more  can 
be  desired  ?  "  And  the  impatient  retort  of  the 
feminine  reader,  "  No  more,  but  possibly  a  little 
less,"  offends  the  critic's  ear.  "  Where  can  you 
find  among  the  genteel  writers  of  this  age,"  asks 
Mr.  Lang  hotly,  "  a  figure  more  beautiful,  ten- 
der, devoted,  and,  in  all  good  ways,  womanly, 
than  Sophia  Western  ? "  "  The  adorable  So- 
phia," Mr.  Austin  Dobson  calls  her,  —  "  pure 
and  womanly,  in  spite  of  her  unfavourable  sur- 


THE  POINT   OF    VIEW  45 

roundings."  Womanliness  is  the  one  trait  about 
which  they  are  all  cock-sure.  It  is  the  question 
at  issue,  and  cannot  be  lightly  begged.  But 
Sophia's  strongest  plea  is  the  love  Sir  Walter 
gave  her. 

For  Scott,  though  most  of  his  young  heroines 
are  drawn  in  a  perfunctory  and  indifferent  fash- 
ion —  mere  incentives  to  enterprise  or  rewards 
of  valour  —  knew  something  of  the  quicksands 
beyond.  He  made  little  boast  of  this  know- 
ledge, frankly  preferring  the  ways  of  men, 
about  whom  there  was  plenty  to  be  told,  and 
whose  motives  never  needed  a  too  assiduous  an- 
alysis. Mr.  Ruskin,  it  is  true,  pronounced  all 
the  women  of  the  Waverley  Novels  to  be  finer 
than  the  men ;  but  he  was  arguing  on  purely 
ethical  grounds.  He  liked  the  women  better 
because  they  were  better,  not  because  their 
goodness  was  truer  to  life.  He  was  incapable 
of  judging  any  work,  literary  or  artistic,  by 
purely  critical  standards.  He  had  praise  for 
Rose  Bradwardine,  and  Catherine  Seyton,  and 
Alice  Lee,  because  they  are  such  well-behaved 
young  ladies ;  he  excluded  from  his  list  of  he- 
roines Lucy  Ashton,  who  stands  forever  as  a 


46  COMPROMISES 

proof  of  her  author's  power  to  probe  a  woman's 
soul.  Scott  did  not  care  to  do  this  thing.  The 
experiment  was  too  painful  for  his  hands.  But 
critics  who  talk  about  the  subtleties  of  mod- 
ern novelists,  as  compared  with  Sir  Walter's 
"  frank  simplicity,"  — patronizing  phrase  !  — 
have  forgotten  "  The  Bride  of  Lammermoor." 
There  is  nothing  more  artistic  within  the  whole 
range  of  fiction  than  our  introduction  to  Lucy 
Ashton,  when  the  doomed  girl  —  as  yet  unseen 
—  is  heard  singing  those  curious  and  haunting 
lines  which  reveal  to  us  at  once  the  struggle 
that  awaits  her,  and  her  helplessness  to  meet 
and  conquer  fate. 

There  are  fashions  in  novel-writing,  as  in 
all  things  else,  and  a  determined  effort  to  be 
analytic  is  imposing  enough  to  mislead.  We 
usually  detect  this  effort  when  men  are  writ- 
ing of  women,  and  when  women  are  writing 
of  men.  The  former  seek  to  be  subtle ;  the 
latter  seek  to  be  strong.  Both  are  deter- 
mined to  reveal  something  which  is  not  always 
a  recognizable  revelation.  In  the  earlier  "  nov- 
els of  character  "  there  is  none  of  this  delicate 
surgery.  Fielding  took  his  material  as  he 


THE  POINT   OF    VIEW  47 

found  it,  and  so  did  Miss  Austen.  She  painted 
her  portraits  with  absolute  truthfulness,  but 
she  never  struggled  for  insight ;  above  all  she 
never  struggled  for  insight  into  masculinity. 
She  knew  her  men  as  well  as  any  author  needs 
to  know  them ;  but  her  moments  of  illumina- 
tion, of  absolute  intimacy,  were  for  women.  It 
is  in  such  a  moment  that  Emma  Woodhouse 
realizes,  "  with  the  speed  of  an  arrow,"  that  Mr. 
Knightley  must  marry  no  one  but  herself. 

There  is  nothing  "  subtle  "  in  this ;  nothing 
that  at  all  resembles  Mr.  Hardy's  careful  ex- 
plorations into  the  intricacies  of  a  character 
like  Eustacia  Vye,  in  "  The  Return  of  the  Na- 
tive." There  is  nothing  of  Mr.  James's  artful- 
ness, nothing  of  Mr.  Meredith's  daring.  These 
two  eminent  novelists  are  past  masters  of  their 
craft.  They  present  their  heroines  as  interest- 
ing puzzles  to  which  they  alone  hold  the  key. 
They  keep  us  in  a  state  of  suspense  from  chap- 
ter to  chapter,  and  they  too  often  baffle  our 
curiosity  in  the  end.  The  treatment  of  Miriam 
Eooth,  in  "  The  Tragic  Muse,"  is  a  triumph 
of  ingenuity.  "  What  do  you  think  of  her  ?  " 
"  What  can  you  make  out  of  her  ?  "  "  What 


48  CO.WPROMISES 

is  she  now,  and  what  is  she  going  to  be  ?  "  are 
the  unasked,  and  certainly  unanswerable,  ques- 
tions suggested  by  every  phase  of  this  young 
woman's  development.  The  bewildered  reader, 
unable  to  formulate  a  theory,  unable  to  make 
even  a  feeble  conjecture,  is  much  impressed 
by  the  problem  laid  before  him,  and  by  the 
acuteness  of  the  author  who  deciphers  it.  If 
to  evolve  a  sphinx  and  to  answer  her  riddle  is 
to  interpret  femininity,  then  there  are  modern 
novelists  who  have  entered  upon  their  king- 
dom. But  one  remembers  Rochefoucauld's  wise 
words :  "  The  greatest  mistake  of  penetration 
is,  not  to  have  fallen  short,  but  to  have  gone 
too  far." 


MARRIAGE  IN  FICTION 

They  fought  bitter  and  regular,  like  man  and  wife. 

SINCE  the  days  of  Richardson  and  Fielding, 
English  novelists  have  devoted  themselves  with 
tireless  energy  to  the  pleasant  task  of  match- 
making. They  have  held  this  duty  to  be  of 
such  paramount  importance  that  much  of  their 
work  has  practically  no  other  raison  d'etre. 
They  write  their  stories  —  so  far  as  we  can 
see  —  solely  and  entirely  that  they  may  bring 
two  wavering  young  people  to  the  altar ;  and 
they  leave  us  stranded  at  the  church  doors  in 
lamentable  ignorance  of  all  that  is  to  follow. 
Thackeray  once  asked  Alexandre  Dumas  why 
he  did  not  take  up  the  real  history  of  other 
people's  heroes  and  heroines,  and  tell  the 
world  what  their  married  lives  were  like. 

It  would  have  been  a  perilous  enterprise, 
for,  notwithstanding  two  centuries  of  practice, 
novelists  are  astonishingly  bad  match-makers. 
We  know  what  happened  when  Thackeray 


50  COMPROMISES 

himself  undertook  to  continue  the  tale  of 
Ivanhoe  and  Rowena,  whom  Scott  abandoned 
to  their  fate,  with  merely  a  gentle  hint  of  some 
mental  deviations  on  the  bridegroom's  part. 
Sir  Walter,  indeed,  always  shook  hands  with 
his  young  couples  on  their  wedding-day,  and 
left  them  to  pull  through  as  best  they  could. 
Their  courtships  and  their  marriages  inter- 
ested him  less  than  other  things  he  wanted  to 
write  about,  —  sieges  and  tournaments,  crimi- 
nal trials,  and  sour  Scottish  saints.  He  had 
lived  his  own  life  bravely  and  happily  without 
his  heart's  desire ;  he  believed  that  it  was  the 
fate  of  most  men  to  do  the  same ;  and  he  clung 
stoutly  to  Dryden's  axiom :  — 

Secrets  of  marriage  still  are  sacred  held, 

Their  sweet  and  bitter  from  the  world  concealed. 

In  real  life  this  admirable  reticence  is  a 
thing  of  the  past;  but  the  novelist,  for  the 
most  part,  holds  his  peace,  leaving  his  readers 
a  prey  to  melancholy  doubts  and  misgivings. 

The  English-speaking  novelist  only.  In 
French  fiction,  as  Mr.  Lang  points  out,  "  love 
comes  after  marriage  punctually  enough,  but 
it  is  always  love  for  another."  The  inevitable- 


MARRIAGE   IN  FICTION  51 

ness  of  the  issue  startles  and  dismays  an  Eng- 
lish reader,  accustomed  to  yawn  gently  over 
the  innocent  prenuptial  dallyings  of  Saxon 
man  and  maid.  The  French  story-writer  can- 
not and  does  not  ignore  his  social  code  which 
urbanely  limits  courtship.  When  he  describes 
a  girl's  dawning  sentiment,  he  does  so  often 
with  exquisite  grace  and  delicacy ;  but  he  re- 
serves his  portrayal  of  the  master  passion 
until  maturity  gives  it  strength,  and  circum- 
stances render  it  unlawful.  His  conception  of 
his  art  imposes  no  scruple  which  can  impede 
analysis.  If  an  English  novelist  ventures  to 
treat  of  illicit  love,  the  impression  he  gives  is 
of  a  blind,  almost  mechanical  force,  operating 
against  rather  than  in  unison  with  natural 
laws.  Those  normal  but  most  repellent  as- 
pects of  the  case,  which  the  Frenchman  treats 
openly  and  exhaustively,  the  Englishman  ig- 
nores or  rejects.  His  theory  of  civilization  is 
built  up  largely  —  and  wisely  —  on  suppres- 
sion. 

But  why  should  the  sentiment  or  passion 
of  love  be  the  chosen  theme  of  story-writers, 
to  the  practical  exclusion  of  other  interests? 


52      .  COMPROMISES 

Why  should  it  be  the  central  point  around 
which  their  tales  revolve?  When  we  look 
about  us  in  the  world  we  know,  we  cannot 
think  that  love  is  taking  up  much  time  and 
attention  in  people's  lives.  It  dominates  glori- 
ously for  a  brief  period,  —  or  for  brief  periods, 
—  and  then  makes  way  for  other  engrossing 
influences.  Its  might  and  authority  are  recog- 
nized ;  but  the  recognition  does  not  imply 
constant  concern.  The  atmosphere  of  life  is 
not  surcharged  with  emotion,  as  is  the  atmo- 
sphere of  fiction.  Society  is  not  composed  of 
young  men  and  women  falling  madly  but  vir- 
tuously in  love  with  one  another,  nor  of  mar- 
ried men  and  women  doing  the  same  thing  on 
less  legitimate  lines. 

To  these  rational  arguments,  which  have 
been  urged  by  restless  critics  before  now,  M. 
Paul  Bourget  makes  answer  that  novelists 
deal  with  love  because,  under  its  white  heat, 
all  characteristics  become  more  vividly  alive, 
and  are  brought  more  actively  and  more 
luminously  into  play.  Man  is  never  so  self- 
revealing  as  when  consumed  by  passion.  We 
see  into  his  heart,  only  when  it  is  lit  by  the 


MARRIAGE   JN  FICTION  53 

flame  of  desire.  Moreover,  love  being  natural, 
and  in  a  manner  inevitable,  there  is  not  in 
treating  of  it  that  suggestion  of  artifice  which 
chills  our  faith  in  most  of  the  incidents  of 
fiction. 

But  is  the  man  whom  we  see  revealed 
by  the  light  of  love  the  real  man  ?  Can  we, 
after  this  transient  illumination,  say  safely  to 
ourselves,  "  We  know  him  well "  ?  Is  it  his 
true  and  human  self,  son  naturel,  to  use  an 
admirable  old  French  phrase,  which  is  both 
quickened  and  betrayed  by  passion  ?  Putting 
cynicism  aside,  rejecting  Lord  Bacon's  dictum, 
"  Love  is  a  nuisance,  and  an  impediment  to 
important  action,"  we  are  still  doubtful  as  to 
the  value  of  traits  studied  under  these  power- 
ful but  perishable  conditions.  It  is  not  what  a 
man  does  when  he  is  in  love,  but  what  he  does 
when  he  is  out  of  love  (Philip  drunk  to  Philip 
sober)  which  counts  for  characterization.  That 
pleasant  old  romancer,  Maistro  Rusticiano  di 
Pisa,  tells  us  that  a  courtier  once  asked  Char- 
lemagne whether  he  held  King  Meliadus  or 
his  son  Tristan  to  be  the  better  man.  To  this 
question  the  Emperor  made  wise  reply :  "  King 


54  COMPROMISES 

Meliadus  was  the  better  man,  and  I  will  tell 
you  why.  As  far  as  I  can  see,  everything  that 
Tristan  did  was  done  for  love,  and  his  great 
feats  would  never  have  been  done,  save  under 
the  constraint  of  love,  which  was  his  spur  and 
goad.  Now  this  same  thing  can  never  be  said 
of  King  Meliadus.  For  what  deeds  he  did,  he 
did  them,  not  by  dint  of  love,  but  by  dint  of 
his  strong  right  arm.  Purely  out  of  his  own 
goodness  he  did  good,  and  not  by  constraint 
of  love." 

It  is  this  element  of  coercion  which  gives  us 
pause.  Not  out  of  his  own  goodness,  nor  out 
of  his  own  badness,  does  the  lover  act ;  but 
goaded  onward  by  a  force  too  impetuous  for 
resistance.  When  this  force  is  spent,  then  we 
can  test  the  might  of  his  "  strong  right  arm." 
Who  that  has  read  it  can  forget  the  matchless 
paragraph  of  adjectives  in  which  the  Ettrick 
Shepherd  contrasts  the  glowing  deceits  of 
courtship  with  the  sober  sincerities  of  married 
life  ?  "  Love,"  he  sighs,  "  is  a  saf t,  sweet, 
bright,  balmy,  triumphant,  and  glorious  lie,  in 
place  of  which  nature  offers  us  in  mockery 
during  a'  the  rest  o'  our  lives  the  puir,  paltry, 


MARRIAGE   IN  FICTION  55 

pitiful,  faded,  fushionless,  cauldrified,  and  clut- 
tering substitute,  truth." 

Small  wonder  that  novelists  content  them- 
selves with  making  matches,  and  refrain  from 
examining  too  closely  the  result  of  their  handi- 
work. They  would  have  more  conscience  about 
it,  if  it  were  not  so  easy  for  them  to  withdraw. 
They  are  almost  as  irresponsible  as  poets,  who 
delight  in  yoking  unequal  mates,  as  proof  of 
the  power  of  love.  Poetry  weds  King  Cophetua 
to  the  beggar  maid,  and  smilingly  retires  from 
any  further  contemplation  of  the  catastrophe. 
Shakespeare  gives  Celia  —  Celia,  with  her 
sweet  brown  beauty,  her  true  heart,  her  nim- 
ble wit,  her  grace  of  exquisite  companion- 
ship —  to  that  unnatural  sinner,  Oliver  ;  and 
the  only  excuse  he  offers  is  that  Oliver  says 
he  is  sorry  for  his  sins.  So  I  suppose  Helen 
of  Troy  said  she  regretted  her  indiscretion, 
and  this  facile  repentance  reinstated  her  in 
happy  domesticity.  But  the  novelist  is  not  at 
play  in  the  Forest  of  Arden.  He  is  presum- 
ably grappling  with  the  dismal  realities  of  earth. 
Nothing  could  be  less  like  a  fairy  playground 
than  the  village  of  Thrums  ("If  the  Auld- 


56  COMPROMISES 

Licht  parishioners  ever  get  to  heaven,"  said 
Dr.  Chalmers,  "  they  will  live  on  the  north 
side  of  it  ")  ;  yet  it  is  in  Thrums  that  Mr. 
Barrie  marries  Babbie  to  the  Little  Minister, 
—  marries  her  with  a  smile  and  a  blessing,  as 
though  he  had  solved,  rather  than  complicated, 
the  mysterious  problem  of  life. 

The  occasional  and  deliberate  effort  of  the 
novelist  to  arrange  an  unhappy  union  in  or- 
der to  emphasize  contrasts  of  character  is  an 
advance  toward  realism  ;  but  the  temporary 
nature  of  such  tragedies  (which  is  well  under- 
stood) robs  the  situation  of  its  power.  In  the 
typical  instance  of  Dorothea  Brooke  and  Mr. 
Casaubon,  George  Eliot  deemed  it  necessary 
to  offer  careful  explanation  of  her  conduct,  — • 
or  of  Dorothea's,  —  and  she  rather  ungener- 
ously threw  the  blame  upon  Middlemarch  so- 
ciety, which  was  guiltless  before  high  Heaven, 
and  upon  the  then  prevalent  "  modes  of  edu- 
cation, which  made  a  woman's  knowledge  an- 
other name  for  motley  ignorance."  In  real- 
ity, Dorothea  was  alone  responsible ;  and  it 
is  hard  not  to  sympathize  with  Mr.  Casaubon, 
who  was  digging  contentedly  enough  in  his 


MARRIAGE   IN  FICTION  57 

little  dry  mythological  dust-heaps  when  she 
dazzled  him  into  matrimony.  It  is  hard  for 
the  unregenerate  heart  not  to  sympathize  occa- 
sionally  with  Kosamond  Vincy  and  with  Tito 
Melema,  whom  George  Eliot  married  to  Lyd- 
gate  and  to  Romola,  in  order  that  she  might 
with  more  efficacy  heap  shame  and  scorn  upon 
their  heads.  The  moral  in  all  these  cases  is 
pointed  as  unwaveringly  as  the  compass  needle 
points  to  the  North  Star.  This  is  what  hap- 
pens when  noble  and  ignoble  natures  are  linked 
together.  This  is  what  happens  when  the  sons 
of  God  wed  with  the  daughters  of  men.  We 
are  not  to  suppose  that  it  was  poor  Mr.  Casau- 
bon's  failure  to  write  his  "  Key  to  all  Mytholo- 
gies," nor  even  his  ignorance  of  German,  which 
alienated  his  wife's  affection  ;  but  rather  his 
selfish  determination  to  sacrifice  her  youth  and 
strength  on  the  altar  of  his  vanity,  —  a  vanity 
to  which  her  early  homage,  be  it  remembered, 
had  given  fresh  impetus  and  life. 

The  pointing  of  morals  is  not,  however,  the 
particular  function  of  married  life.  The  pro- 
blem it  presents  is  a  purely  natural  one,  and 
its  ethical  value  is  not  so  easily  ascertained. 


58  COMPROMISES 

For  the  most  part  the  sons  of  men  wed  with 
the  daughters  of  men.  They  do  not  offer  the 
contrast  of  processional  virtues  and  of  deep 
debasement ;  but  the  far  wider  contrast  of 
manhood  and  of  womanhood,  of  human  crea- 
tures whose  minds  and  hearts  and  tastes  and 
instincts  are  radically  unlike ;  who  differ  in 
all  essentials  from  the  very  foundations  of 
their  being.  "  Our  idea  of  honour  is  not  their 
idea  of  honour,"  says  Mr.  Lang,  speaking  for 
men,  and  of  women ;  "  our  notions  of  justice 
and  of  humour  are  not  their  notions  of  justice 
and  of  humour ;  nor  can  we  at  all  discover  a 
common  calculus  of  the  relative  importance  of 
things." 

This  is  precisely  why  we  wish  that  novelists 
would  not  neglect  their  opportunities,  and 
shirk  their  responsibilities,  by  escaping  at  the 
church  door.  What  did  really  happen  when 
Babbie  married  the  little  Minister,  and  added 
to  the  ordinary  difficulties  of  wedlock  the  ex- 
traordinary complications  of  birth  and  training, 
habits  and  character,  irreconcilably  at  variance 
with  the  traditions  of  the  Auld-Licht  rectory  ? 
We  know  how  the  mother  of  John  Wesley,  — 


MARRIAGE   IN  FICTION  59 

and  incidentally  of  eighteen  other  children,  — 
a  dour,  stern,  pious  parson's  wife,  refused  to 
say  amen  to  her  husband's  prayer  for  King 
William,  and  dwelt  apart  from  her  reverend 
spouse  and  master  for  twelve  long  months, 
rather  than  relinquish  a  sentiment  of  loyalty 
for  the  rightful  sovereign  of  the  land.  Such 
incidents  stand  in  our  way  when  we  are  told 
musically  that  — 

Love  will  still  be  lord  of  all. 

Mrs.  Wesley  loved  her  husband,  and  she  did 
not  love  the  banished  and  papistical  James ; 
yet  it  was  only  King  William's  death  (a  happy 
and  unforeseen  solution  of  the  difficulty)  which 
brought  her  back  to  submission  and  conjugal 

joy8- 

For  one  of  the  most  ill-assorted  marriages 
in  fiction  Miss  Austen  must  be  held  to  blame. 
It  was  this  lady's  firm  conviction  (founded  on 
Heaven  knows  what  careful  and  continued 
observation)  that  clever  men  are  wont  for  the 
most  part  to  marry  foolish  or  stupid  women. 
We  see  in  nearly  all  her  books  the  net  results 
of  such  seemingly  inexplicable  alliances.  In 


60  COMPROMISES 

what  moment  of  madness  did  Mr.  Bennet  ask 
Mrs.  Bennet  to  be  his  wife  ?  Nothing  can  ex- 
plain such  an  enigma ;  but  Miss  Austen's  philo- 
sophy, and  her  knowledge  of  that  commonplace 
middle-class  English  life,  which  the  eighteenth 
century  had  stripped  bare  of  all  superfluous 
emotions,  enabled  her  to  prove  —  to  her  own 
satisfaction  at  least  —  that  Mr.  Bennet  was 
tolerably  content  with  the  situation.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  he  enjoys  his  wife's  ab- 
surdities. Only  in  his  few  earnest  words  to 
Elizabeth,  when  Darcy  has  asked  for  her  hand : 
"  My  child,  let  me  not  have  the  grief  of  seeing 
you  unable  to  respect  your  partner  in  life,"  do 
we  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  Valley  of  Humiliation 
which  he  has  trodden  for  twenty-four  years.  A 
still  more  emphatic  illustration  of  Miss  Aus- 
ten's point  of  view  is  afforded  us  in  "  Sense  and 
Sensibility,"  when  Eleanor  Dash  wood  decides 
that  Mrs.  Palmer's  surpassing  foolishness  can- 
not sufficiently  account  for  Mr.  Palmer's  rude- 
ness and  discontent.  "  His  temper  might  per- 
haps be  a  little  soured  by  finding,  like  many 
others  of  his  sex,  that,  through  some  unaccount- 
able bias  in  favour  of  beauty,  he  was  the  hus- 


MARRIAGE   IN  FICTION  61 

band  of  a  very  silly  woman  ;  but  she  knew  that 
this  kind  of  blunder  was  too  common  for  any 
sensible  man  to  be  lastingly  hurt  by  it." 

Fortified  by  such  philosophy,  convinced 
that  the  natural  order  of  things,  though  myste- 
rious and  unpleasant,  does  not  entail  unhappi- 
ness,  Miss  Austen  deliberately  marries  Henry 
Tilney  to  Catherine  Morland ;  marries  them 
after  an  engagement  long  enough  to  have 
opened  the  bridegroom's  eyes,  were  it  not  for 
the  seventy  merciful  miles  which  lie  between 
Northanger  Abbey  and  the  rectory  of  Fullerton. 
With  an  acute  and  delicate  cynicism,  so  gently 
spoken  that  we  hardly  feel  its  sting,  she  proves 
to  us,  in  a  succession  of  conversations,  that  "  a 
good-looking  girl  with  an  affectionate  heart  and 
a  very  ignorant  mind  cannot  fail  of  attracting 
a  clever  young  man,  unless  circumstances  are 
particularly  untoward."  When  Catherine  de- 
livers her  priceless  views  upon  the  unprofitable 
labour  of  historians,  we  know  that  Mr.  Tilney's 
fate  is  sealed. 

"  You  are  fond  of  history !  —  and  so  are  Mr. 
Allen  and  my  father  ;  and  I  have  two  brothers 
who  do  not  dislike  it.  So  many  instances  within 


62  COMPROMISES 

my  small  circle  of  friends  is  remarkable.  At 
this  rate,  I  shall  not  pity  the  writers  of  history 
any  longer.  If  people  like  to  read  their  books, 
it  is  all  very  well ;  but  to  be  at  so  much  trouble 
in  filling  great  volumes,  which,  as  I  used  to 
think,  nobody  would  willingly  ever  look  into, 
to  be  labouring  only  for  the  torment  of  little 
boys  and  girls,  always  struck  me  as  a  hard 
fate.  And  though  I  know  it  is  all  very  right 
and  necessary,  I  have  often  wondered  at  the 
person's  courage  that  could  sit  down  on  pur- 
pose to  do  it." 

To  be  told  that  history  is  made  admirable 
because  you  read  it,  is  flattering  indeed.  Mr. 
Tilney  is  satisfied  that  Catherine  has  "  a  great 
deal  of  natural  taste,"  —  an  impression  which 
her  artless  admiration  for  his  talents  deepens 
into  agreeable  certainty.  When  he  asks  her 
hand  in  marriage,  Miss  Austen  reminds  us 
with  dispassionate  candour  that  his  attachment 
originated  in  gratitude.  "  A  persuasion  of  her 
partiality  for  him  had  been  the  only  cause  of 
his  giving  her  a  serious  thought."  There  is  a 
final  jest  about  beginning  "  perfect  happiness  " 
at  the  respective  ages  of  twenty-six  and  eigh- 


MARRIAGE  IN  FICTION  6c 

teen,  and  the  curtain  is  rung  down  upon  a  life- 
time of  irrational  ennui. 

The  world  of  the  novelist  is  full  of  such 
strange  mishaps,  and  our  sense  of  inquietude 
corresponds  with  our  conviction  of  their  reality. 
Mrs.  Ward  probably  does  not  expect  us  to  be- 
lieve that  Jacob  Delafield  and  Julie  Le  Breton 
lived  happily  and  harmoniously  together.  There 
is  something  as  radically  inharmonious  in  their 
marriage  as  in  the  union  of  conflicting  elements. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  taking  chances  of  happi- 
ness, as  Sophia  Western  takes  them  with  Tom 
Jones  (very  good  chances,  to  my  way  of  think- 
ing) ;  it  is  a  question  of  unalterable  laws  by 
which  the  gods  limit  our  human  joy.  But  there 
is  no  sharp  sense  of  disappointment  awakened 
in  our  hearts  when  we  read  "  Lady  Rose's 
Daughter,"  as  when  more  powerful  currents 
of  emotion  turn  awry.  That  Henry  Esmond 
should  have  married  Lady  Castlewood,  or  ra- 
ther, that  he  should  not  have  married  Beatrix, 
I  count  one  of  the  permanent  sorrows  of  life. 

In  an  exceedingly  clever  and  ruthlessly 
disagreeable  novel  by  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw, 
44  Cashel  Byron's  Profession,"  there  is  a  brief, 


64  COMPROMISES 

clear  exposition  of  that  precise  phase  of  life 
which  novelists,  as  a  rule,  decline  to  elucidate. 
Cashel  Byron  is  a  prize-fighter,  a  champion 
light-weight,  well-born  (though  he  does  not 
know  it)  and  of  cleanly  life ;  but  nevertheless 
a  prize-fighter,  with  the  instincts,  habits,  and 
vocabulary  of  his  class.  A  young  woman,  rich, 
refined,  bookish,  brought  up  in  a  rarefied  in- 
tellectual atmosphere  which  has  starved  her 
healthy  sentiment  to  danger  point,  falls  help- 
lessly in  love  with  his  beauty  and  his  strength, 
and  marries  him,  in  mute  desperate  defiance  of 
social  laws.  The  story  closes  at  this  point,  but 
the  author  adds  a  brief  commentary,  designed 
to  explain  the  limited  possibilities  of  happi- 
ness that  exist  for  the  ex-pugilist  and  his  wife. 
"  Cashel's  admiration  for  Lydia  survived 
the  ardour  of  his  first  love  for  her,  and  she 
employed  all  her  forethought  not  to  disappoint 
his  reliance  011  her  judgment.  She  led  a  busy 
life,  and  wrote  some  learned  monographs,  as 
well  as  a  work  in  which  she  denounced  educa- 
tion as  practised  in  the  universities  and  public 
schools.  Her  children  inherited  her  acuteness 
and  refinement,  with  their  father's  robustness 


MARRIAGE   IN  FICTION  65 

and  aversion  to  study.  They  were  precocious 
and  impudent,  had  no  respect  for  Cashel,  and 
showed  any  they  had  for  their  mother  princi- 
pally by  running  to  her  when  they  were  in 
difficulties.  .  .  .  The  care  of  this  troublesome 
family  had  one  advantage  for  her.  It  left  her 
little  time  to  think  about  herself,  or  about  the 
fact  that,  when  the  illusion  of  her  love  passed 
away,  Cashel  fell  in  her  estimation.  But  the 
children  were  a  success,  and  she  soon  came  to 
regard  him  as  one  of  them.  When  she  had 
leisure  to  consider  the  matter  at  all,  which 
seldom  occurred,  it  seemed  to  her  that,  on  the 
whole,  she  had  chosen  wisely." 

Here  are  conditions  which,  if  presented  at 
length  and  with  sufficient  skill,  might  hold  us 
spellbound.  Here  is  an  opportunity  to  force 
conviction,  were  the  novelist  disposed  to  grap- 
ple with  his  real  work.  As  it  is,  Mr.  Shaw 
contents  himself  with  adding  one  more  to  the 
marital  failures  of  fiction.  Dr.  Johnson  said 
that  most  marriages  would  turn  out  as  well  if 
the  Lord  Chancellor  made  them.  The  Lord 
Chancellor  would  assuredly  make  them  better 
than  that  blundering  expert,  the  novelist. 


OUR  BELIEF  IN   BOOKS 

What  pleasantness  of  teaching  there  is  in  books,  —  how 
easy,  how  secret !  How  safely  we  lay  bare  the  poverty  of 
human  ignorance  to  books,  without  feeling  any  shame ! 
They  are  masters  who  instruct  us  without  rod  or  ferule, 
without  angry  words,  without  clothes  or  money.  If  you 
come  to  them,  they  are  not  asleep  ;  if  you  ask  and  inquire 
of  them,  they  do  not  withdraw  themselves  ;  they  do  not 
chide  if  you  make  mistakes  ;  they  do  not  laugh  at  you  if 
you  are  ignorant.  0  books,  who  alone  are  liberal  and  free, 
who  give  to  all  who  ask  of  you,  and  enfranchise  all  who 
serve  you  faithfully.  —  RICHAKD  DE  BURY,  Bishop  of 
Durham,  A.  D.  1459. 

ENOUGH  has  been  written  in  praise  of  books 
to  fill  a  library.  It  is  not  always  so  eloquently 
worded  as  is  the  Bishop  of  Durham's  benedic- 
tion; but  the  same  general  truths  —  or  falla- 
cies—  are  repeated  with  more  or  less  pride 
and  persuasiveness.  At  the  same  time,  a  lesser 
library  might  be  compiled  of  the  warnings  ut- 
tered by  the  anxious  ones  who  hold  that  the 
power  of  books  is  more  potent  than  benign, 
and  that  if  one  half  of  the  world's  readers  are 
being  led  gloriously  to  high  and  noble  truths, 


OUR  BELIEF  IN  BOOKS  67 

the  other  half  is  being  vitiated  by  an  influence 
which  makes  for  paltriness  and  degradation. 
Under  all  circumstances,  we  are  asked  to  be- 
lieve that  we  are  dominated  by  the  printed 
page.  It  is  this  conviction  which  induces  so 
much  of  austerity  —  not  to  say  of  censorious- 
ness  —  in  our  counsellors,  whose  upbraidings 
are  but  the  echoes  of  those  sterner  protests 
with  which  church  and  state  were  wont  in 
earlier  days  to  direct  the  reading  courses  of  the 
public.  That  books  have  always  been  deemed 
formidable  antagonists  is  proven  by  their  fre- 
quent condemnation.  The  fires  that  were  kin- 
dled for  sorcerers  and  for  heretics  flamed  just 
as  fiercely  for  the  stubborn  volumes  which 
passed  the  border-land  of  orthodoxy.  Calvin 
burned  all  the  pamphlets  and  manuscripts  of 
Servetus  at  the  same  time  that  he  burned  their 
author ;  in  consequence  of  which  thoroughness, 
"  Christianismi  Restitutio  "  is  said  to  be  one 
of  the  rarest  dissertations  in  the  world. 

For  some  books  that  perished  at  the  stake 
the  antiquarian  can  never  mourn  enough.  An 
act  passed  in  the  short  reign  of  King  Edward 
VI  commanded  the  wholesale  destruction  of 


68  COMPROMISES 

all  "  antiphones,  myssales,  scrayles,  procession- 
ales,  manuelles,  legendes,  pyes,  prymars  in 
Lattyn  or  Inglishe,  cowchers,  journales,  ordi- 
nales,  or  other  books  or  writings  whatsoever, 
heretofore  used  for  the  service  of  the  churche, 
written  or  prynted  in  the  Inglishe  or  Lattyn 
tongue."  Owners  of  these  precious  volumes 
were  commanded  to  give  them  up  (heavy  fines 
being  exacted  for  disobedience),  that  they 
might  be  "  openlye  brent,  or  otherways  defaced 
and  destroied."  None  were  spared,  save  the 
"  Prymars  in  the  Inglishe  or  Lattyn  tongue 
set  f orthe  by  the  late  Kinge  of  famous  memorie, 
Kinge  Henrie  the  eight ;  "  and  even  from  such 
hallowed  pages  all  "  invocations  or  prayers  to 
saintes  "  were  to  be  "  blotted  or  clerelye  put 
out."  Orthodoxy  is  a  costly  indulgence.  What 
treasures  were  lost  to  the  world,  what  — 

Small  rare  volumes,  dark  with  tarnished  gold, 

shrivelled  into  ashes,  that  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon  Prayer  might  rule  in  undisputed  au- 
thority and  right ! 

Queen  Elizabeth  was  strenuously  opposed 
to  "  schismatical "  works,  as  well  as  to  those 


OUR  BELIEF  IN  BOOKS  69 

of  a  political  or  diplomatic  character.  With 
broad-minded  impartiality  she  burned  all  books 
and  pamphlets  which  presumed  to  deal  —  no 
matter  in  what  spirit  —  with  subjects  she  did 
not  wish  discussed.  Like  the  old  Tory  lady 
who  objected  to  her  Tory  butler's  sentiments, 
seeing  no  reason  why  butlers  should  have 
sentiments  at  all,  Elizabeth  punished  the  too 
effusive  piety  and  patriotism  of  her  subjects 
as  severely  as  she  punished  their  discontent. 
The  hall  kitchen  of  the  Stationers'  Company 
witnessed  many  a  bonfire  of  books  during  her 
reign ;  and  many  an  incautious  author  dis- 
covered with  poor  Peter  Wentworth  that  "  the 
anger  of  a  Prince  is  as  the  roaring  of  a  Lyon, 
and  even  as  the  messenger  of  Death."  James 
I  favoured  St.  Paul's  churchyard  as  a  spot  sin- 
gularly suitable  for  the  cremation  of  books ; 
and  Oxford  and  Cambridge  had  their  own  ex- 
clusive auto-da-fes  for  two  centuries  and  more. 
Edinburgh,  with  fine  national  feeling,  burned 
Drake's  "  Historia  Anglo-Scotica,"  because  its 
English  tone  offended  Scottish  pride;  and  Eng- 
land burned  the  Rev.  Arthur  Bury's  "  Naked 
Gospel "  in  1690,  because  she  conceived  that 


70  COMPROMISES 

a  rector  of  Exeter  should  veil  his  truths  more 
decently  from  the  eyes  of  the  feeble  and  pro- 
fane. The  last  book  to  achieve  such  unmerited 
distinction  in  Great  Britain  was  a  copy  of  Mr. 
Froude's  "  Nemesis  of  Faith,"  which,  being 
discovered  in  the  possession  of  an  Oxford  stu- 
dent, was  publicly  burned  by  the  Rev.  William 
Sewell,  Dean  of  Exeter,  in  the  college  hall,  on 
the  twenty-seventh  of  February,  1849.  "  Ox- 
ford," says  Mr.  James  Anson  Farrer,  "has 
always  tempered  her  love  for  learning  with  a 
dislike  for  inquiry."  The  incident,  being  at 
best  unusual,  gave  such  a  healthy  impetus  to 
the  sale  of  Mr.  Froude's  work  —  which  had 
won  no  wide  hearing  —  that  it  went  into  a  sec- 
ond edition,  and  became  an  object  of  keen, 
though  temporary,  solicitude.  Well  might  the 
Marquis  de  Langle  say  that  burning  was  as 
a  blue  ribbon  to  any  book,  inspiring  inter- 
est, and  insuring  sales.  There  are  those  who 
affirm  that  the  "Index  Expurgatorius,"  by 
which  the  Roman  Catholic  church  still  seeks 
to  restrain  the  reading  of  her  children,  is  a 
similar  spur  to  curiosity.  This  I  do  not  be- 
lieve, having  never  in  my  life  met  a  Roman 


OUR  BELIEF   IN  BOOKS  71 

Catholic  who  knew  what  works  were  or  were 
not  upon  the  "  Index,"  or  who  had  been  in- 
cautious enough  to  inquire. 

The  decline  of  church  discipline  and  the 
enfeeblement  of  law  permit  books  now  to  die 
a  natural  death  ;  but  the  conviction  of  their 
powerful  and  perilous  authority  still  lingers  in 
the  teacher's  heart.  If  he  knows,  as  is  often 
the  case,  much  of  letters  and  little  of  life,  he 
magnifies  this  authority  until  it  seems  the 
dominant  influence  of  the  world.  A  writer  in 
one  of  the  British  quarterlies  assures  us  with 
almost  incredible  seriousness  that  we  are  at  the 
mercy  of  the  authors  whom  we  read. 

"  We  take  a  silent,  innocent-seeming  volume 
into  our  hands,  and,  when  we  put  it  down,  we 
shall  never  again  be  what  we  were  before.  .  .  , 
St.  Augustine  opened  the  book,  and  one  single 
sentence  changed  him  from  the  brilliant,  god- 
less, self-satisfied  rhetorician  into  a  powerful 
religious  force.  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a 
youth  who  opens  a  mere  magazine  article  writ- 
ten against  his  faith.  He  throws  off  the  early 
influence  of  home  like  a  mantle,  and  plunges 
thenceforward  into  the  4  sunless  gulf  of  doubt,' 


72  COMPROMISES 

with  the  unspeakable   morasses   at   the   bot- 
tom." 

This  is  a  little  like  the  man  who  left  the 
Unitarian  church  because  "  somebody  told 
him  it  was  n't  true."  How  is  a  soul  so  sensi- 
tive to  be  kept  in  —  or  out  of  —  any  fold  ?  A 
religion  which  dissolves  before  the  persuasions 
of  a  magazine  article  must  necessarily  be  as 
short-lived  as  the  love  —  "  the  slight,  thin  sort 
of  inclination  "  —  which  is  starved,  so  Eliza- 
beth Bennett  tells  us,  by  a  sonnet.  "  Ten 
thousand  difficulties,"  says  Cardinal  Newman 
nobly,  "  do  not  make  one  doubt ; "  but  the 
thinker  who  cannot  surmount  the  first  and 
feeblest  of  the  difficulties  should  never  have 
essayed  the  perilous  pathway  of  the  alphabet. 
Neither  was  St.  Augustine's  inspiration  a  flash- 
light upon  darkness.  The  "  self-satisfied  rheto- 
rician "  was  not  converted,  like  Harlequin,  in 
one  dazzling  moment.  There  had  been  a  long 
and  bitter  struggle  between  the  forces  of  life 
and  death,  of  the  spirit  and  the  flesh,  before  the 
word  of  St.  Paul  penetrated  with  overwhelming 
sweetness  into  a  soul  cleared  by  hard  thinking, 
and  cleansed  by  a  passion  for  perfection. 


OUR  BELIEF  IN  BOOKS  73 

Man  may  be  an  unstable  creature,  —  we 
have  been  told  so  until  we  believe  it,  —  but 
he  parts  reluctantly  from  his  convictions,  and 
is  slow  to  break  the  habits  of  a  lifetime. 
Hear  what  Robert  Burton  has  to  say  about 
the  obstinate  perversity  of  heretics. 

"  Single  out  the  most  ignorant  of  them. 
Convince  his  understanding.  Show  him  his 
errors.  Prove  to  him  the  grossness  and  ab- 
surdities of  his  sect.  He  will  not  be  per- 
suaded." 

He  will  not,  indeed,  whether  persuasion 
take  the  form  of  a  sermon,  a  magazine  article, 
or  the  stake.  Luther  said  that  the  more  he 
read  the  Fathers  of  the  early  Church,  the 
more  he  found  himself  offended  ;  which  proves 
the  strength  of  a  mental  attitude  to  resist  the 
most  penetrating  of  influences.  Neither  are  po- 
litical heretics  any  easier  to  enlighten.  "Who," 
asks  Lord  Coleridge,  "  ever  convinced  an  an- 
tagonist by  a  speech  ?  "  On  the  contrary,  there 
is  a  natural  and  healthy  sentiment  of  revolt 
when  views  we  do  not  share  are  set  forth  with 
unbroken  continuity  and  insistence.  In  the 
give  and  take  of  conversation,  in  the  advance 


74  COMPROMISES 

and  retreat  of  argument,  in  the  swift  intrusion 
of  the  spoken  word,  made  overpowering  by  the 
charm  of  personality,  we  encounter  a  force  too 
subtle  and  personal  to  be  resisted.  Uncon- 
sciously we  yield  at  some  point  to  the  insidious 
attack  of  thoughts  and  ideas  so  presented  as  to 
weaken  our  individual  opposition,  and  adroitly 
force  an  entrance  to  our  souls.  But  books, 
like  sermons,  fail  by  reason  of  the  smoothness 
of  their  current ;  because  there  is  no  backwater 
to  stir  the  eddies,  and  whirl  us  into  conflict  and 
submission.  We  feel  that,  could  we  have  spent 
our  "  mornings  in  Florence  "  with  Mr.  Ruskin, 
have  looked  with  him  at  frescoes,  tombs,  and 
pavements,  and  have  disputed  at  every  point 
his  magnificent  assumption  of  authority,  we 
might  have  ended  by  accepting  his  most  un- 
reasonable and  intolerant  verdicts.  Could  we 
free  our  souls  by  expressing  to  Mr.  John  Morley 
our  sentiments  concerning  Mr.  Gladstone,  we 
might  in  return  be  impelled  to  share  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  enlightened  biographer.  But 
neither  Mr.  Buskin  nor  Mr.  Morley  has  the 
same  power  of  persuasiveness  in  print.  The 
simple  process  of  leaving  out  whatever  is  an- 


OUR   BELIEF  IN  BOOKS  75 

tagonistic  makes  demonstration  easy,  but  in- 
conclusive. Sometimes  the  robust  directness 
of  the  method  inclines  us  peremptorily  to  re- 
sistance. It  is  hard  for  a  generous  heart  not  to 
sympathize  with  the  exiled  Stewarts,  after  read- 
ing Lord  Macaulay's  "  History  of  England." 
Mr.  Froude  must  be  held  responsible  for  much 
of  the  extravagant  enthusiasm  professed  for 
the  Queen  of  Scots.  And  I  once  knew  an  in- 
telligent girl  who  had  been  driven  by  Mr.  Pres- 
cott  into  worshipping  Philip  II  as  a  hero. 

People  who  have  contracted  the  habit  of 
writing  books  are  naturally  prone  to  exaggerate 
their  importance.  It  is  this  sentiment  which 
has  provoked  the  attitude  of  fault-finding,  of 
continuous  grumbling  at  readers,  which  is  so 
marked  a  characteristic  of  modern  criticism. 
The  public  is  reproached,  admonished,  warned 
by  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  that  if  it  feels  con- 
tumacious —  which  is  not  infrequently  the  case 
—  it  should  pray  for  a  "  cleanlier  and  quieter 
spirit."  Whenever  a  handful  of  books  is  pre- 
sented to  a  community,  addresses  are  made  to 
show,  on  the  one  hand,  that  reading  and  writ- 
ing are  better  than  meat  and  drink,  and,  on  the 


76  COMPROMISES 

other,  that  the  people  who  read  and  write  are 
on  the  brink  of  abysmal  destruction.  I  have 
heard  a  lecturer  upon  one  of  these  august  oc- 
casions gloomily  prophesy  that  many  of  the 
volumes  waiting  to  be  perused  would  "  deprave 
the  taste,  irritate  the  vanity,  exaggerate  the  ego- 
tism, and  vitiate  the  curiosity  of  their  readers." 
This  seemed  an  unfortunate  result  for  philan- 
thropy to  achieve  ;  but  the  speaker  went  on  to 
excite  the  godless  interest  of  his  audience  by 
warning  them  that  romance  —  of  which  the 
new  library  was  reasonably  full  —  would  exer- 
cise a  "  bewildering  and  blinding  effect "  upon 
their  minds,  "  filling  them  with  false  hopes  and 
enervating  dreams."  He  then  defined  a  good 
novel  as  one  which  should  "  stimulate  a  healthy 
imagination,  a  sober  ambition,  a  modest  ardour, 
an  eager  humility,  a  love  of  what  is  truly 
'great ;  "  and  left  us  oppressed  with  the  convic- 
tion that  the  usefulness  of  our  earthly  careers 
and  the  salvation  of  our  immortal  souls  de- 
pended upon  the  fiction  that  we  read. 

"  There  is  no  harm,"  says  Mr.  Birrell 
sweetly,  "  in  talking  about  books,  still  less  in 
reading  them  ;  but  it  is  folly  to  pretend  to  wor- 


OUR   BELIEF   IN  BOOKS  11 

ship  them."  It  is  folly  to  exaggerate  their  con- 
trolling influence  in  our  lives.  We  are  not 
more  modestly  ardent  after  reading  "Vanity 
Fair,"  nor  more  eagerly  humble  after  spending 
long  and  happy  hours  with  "  Emma."  No  sober 
ambition  stirs  chastely  in  our  souls  when  we  lay 
down,  with  a  sigh  of  content,  "  Pride  and  Preju- 
dice," or  "  Guy  Mannering,"  or  "  Henry  ES- 
mond,"  or  "The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel.' 
Even  "  Anna  Karenina  "  fails  to  inspire  us  with 
"false  hopes  and  enervating  dreams;  "  and  while 
we  are  often  bewildered  by  Mr.  Henry  James's 
masterpieces,  we  have  never  been  blinded  by 
any.  As  for  the  ordinary  novels  that  tumble 
headlong  from  the  press,  it  is  impossible  to  im- 
agine them  as  inspiring  either  ardour  or  am- 
bition, egotism  or  humility.  They  may  perhaps 
be  trusted  to  weaken  our  literary  instincts,  and 
to  induce  mental  inertia,  —  "  the  surest  way  of 
having  no  thoughts  of  our  own,"  says  Schopen- 
hauer, "  is  to  take  up  a  book  every  time  we 
have  nothing  to  do,"  —  but  they  are  not,  as 
their  writers  and  their  critics  fearfully  assert, 
the  arbiters  of  our  destinies. 

A  belief  in  the    overpowering  influence  of 


78  COMPROMISES 

books  was  part  of  Carlyle's  gospel.  He  had  a 
curious  modesty  about  giving  advice,  even  when 
it  was  sought ;  and  —  born  dictator  though  he 
was  —  he  realized  that  his  own  literary  needs 
were  not  necessarily  the  literary  needs  of  other 
men.  He  said  as  much  quite  simply  and  sincerely 
when  people  asked  him  what  they  should  read, 
holding  always,  with  Dr.  Johnson,  that  incli- 
nation must  prompt  the  choice.  To  be  sure,  like 
Dr.  Johnson,  and  like  Emerson,  he  presupposed 
inclination  to  be  of  an  austere  and  seemly 
order.  Emerson  never  wearied  of  saying  that 
people  should  read  what  they  liked ;  but  he 
plainly  expected  them  to  like  only  what  was 
good.  Carlyle  was  firmly  convinced  that  author- 
ship carried  with  it  responsibilities  too  serious 
for  trifling.  He  reverenced  the  printed  page, 
and  he  expressed  this  reverence,  this  confession 
of  faith,  in  the  most  explicit  and  comprehensive 
assertion. 

"  The  writer  of  a  book  is  he  not  a  preacher, 
preaching,  not  to  this  parish  or  that,  but  to 
all  men  in  all  times  and  places?  Not  the 
wretchedest  circulating  library  novel  which 
foolish  girls  thumb  and  con  in  remote  villages, 


OUR  BELIEF  IN  BOOKS  79 

but  will  help  to  regulate  the  actual  practical 
weddings  and  households  of  those  foolish  girls." 
More  than  this  it  would  be  impossible  to 
say,  and  few  of  us,  I  hope,  would  be  willing 
to  say  as  much.  The  idea  is  too  oppressive  to 
be  borne.  Only  authors  and  critics  can  afford 
to  take  this  view  of  life.  Personally  I  believe 
that  a  foolish  girl  is  more  influenced  by  an- 
other foolish  girl,  to  say  nothing  of  a  foolish 
boy,  than  by  all  the  novels  on  the  library 
shelves.  Companionship  and  propinquity  are 
forces  to  be  reckoned  with.  Mind  touches  mind 
like  an  electric  current.  The  contagion  of  folly 
is  spread,  like  other  forms  of  contagion,  by 
personal  contact.  Books  may,  as  Carlyle  says, 
preach  to  all  men,  in  all  times  and  places; 
but  it  is  precisely  their  lack  of  reticence,  the 
universality  of  their  message,  their  chill  pub- 
licity of  tone  which  reduces  their  readers  to  the 
level  of  an  audience  or  of  a  congregation.  If  we 
recall  the  disclosures  with  which  we  have  been 
favoured  from  time  to  time  by  distinguished 
people  who  consented  to  tell  the  world  what 
books  had  influenced  their  lives,  we  cannot 
fail  to  remember  the  perfunctory  nature  of 


80  COMPROMISES 

these  revelations.  It  was  as  though  the  speak- 
ers had  first  marshalled  in  order  the  most  en- 
during masterpieces  of  literature,  and  had  then 
fitted  their  own  sentiments  and  experiences 
into  appropriate  grooves.  This  reversal  of  a 
natural  law  is  much  in  favour  when  what  are 
called  epoch-making  books  come  under  public 
discussion.  There  are  enthusiasts  who  appear 
to  think  that  Rousseau  evoked  the  French 
Revolution,  and  that  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin " 
was  responsible  for  the  Civil  War.  When  the 
impetus  of  a  profound  and  powerful  emotion, 
the  mighty  will  of  a  great  event  finds  expres- 
sion in  literature,  —  or  at  least  in  letters,  — 
the  writer's  mind  speeds  like  a  greyhound 
along  the  track  of  public  sentiment.  It  does 
not  create  the  sentiment,  it  does  not  appreci- 
ably intensify  it ;  but  it  enables  people  to  per- 
ceive more  clearly  the  nature  of  the  course 
to  which  they  stand  committed.  These  sym- 
pathetic triumphs  are  sometimes  mistaken  for 
literary  triumphs.  They  are  often  thought  to 
lead  the  chase  they  follow. 

If,   on    the    other  hand,   we   ask  ourselves 
soberly  what  books  have  helped  to  mould  our 


OUR  BELIEF  IN  BOOKS  81 

characters  or  to  control  our  energies,  we  shall 
not  find  the  list  an  imposing  one.  There  will 
be  little  or  nothing  to  tell  a  listening  world. 
Rather  may  we  incline  to  the  open  skepticism 
of  Lord  Byron  :  "  Who  was  ever  altered  by  a 
poem?"  Even  presuming  that  we  are  happy 
enough  to  detach  ourselves  from  contemporary 
criticism,  and  to  read  for  human  delight ;  even 
presuming  that,  after  a  lifetime  of  effort,  we 
have  learned  to  recognize  perfection  in  literary 
art,  and  to  turn  of  our  own  free  will  to  those 
lonely  works  which  "  in  the  best  and  noblest 
sense  of  a  good  and  noble  word,  should  be,  and 
forever  remain,  essentially  unpopular ; "  even 
then  it  does  not  follow  that  we  are  mastered 
by  the  books  we  love.  There  still  remains  to 
us  that  painful  and  unconquerable  originality, 
which  is  not  defiant,  but  only  helplessly  in- 
capable of  submission.  "  Giving  a  reason  for 
a  thing,"  says  Dr.  Johnson,  "  does  not  make  it 
right."  Let  us  hope  that  being  unable  to  give 
a  reason  for  a  thing  does  not  prove  us  wrong. 
The  Rev.  Mark  Pattison,  who  was  the  most 
unflinching  reader  of  his  day,  who  looked 
upon  money  only  as  a  substance  convertible 


82  COMPROMISES 

by  some  happy  alchemy  into  leather-bound 
volumes,  and  upon  time  only  as  a  possession 
which  could  be  exchanged  for  a  wider  ac- 
quaintance with  literature,  understood  better 
than  any  scholar  in  England  the  limitations 
and  futilities  of  print.  He  did  not  say  with 
Hobbes,  "  If  I  had  read  as  much  as  other 
men,  I  should  doubtless  have  shared  their 
ignorance,"  because  he  had  read  more  than 
other  men,  and  was  very  widely  informed ;  but 
he  pointed  out  with  startling  lucidity  that  a 
flexible  mind  fortifies  itself  rather  by  conver- 
sation, which  is  the  gift  of  the  few,  than  by 
reading,  which  is  the  resource  of  the  many. 
"  Books,"  he  said,  "  are  written  in  response  to 
a  demand  for  recreation  by  minds  roused  to 
intelligence,  but  not  to  intellectual  activity." 
There  is  something  pathetic  in  his  frankly  en- 
vious admiration  of  the  French,  who  can  and 
do  convey  their  thoughts  to  one  another  in 
a  language  wrought  up  to  be  "the  perfect 
medium  of  wit  and  wisdom,  —  the  wisdom  of 
the  serpent,  —  the  incisive  medium  of  the  prac- 
tical intelligence."  He  quoted  with  melancholy 
appreciation  Lord  Houghton's  story  of  the 


OUR  BELIEF  IN  BOOKS  83 

Italian  who,  after  submitting  to  the  heavy  hos- 
pitality of  an  English  country-house,  drew  a 
newly  arrived  Frenchman  into  a  corner  with 
the  eager  request :  "  Viens  done  causer.  Je  n'ai 
pas  cause  pour  quinze  jours." 

Mr.  Lang  is  responsible  for  the  statement 
—  spoken,  let  us  hope,  in  the  enjoyment  of  a 
sardonic  mood  rather  than  after  dispassionate 
observation  —  that  the  average  Englishman  or 
Englishwoman  would  as  soon  think  of  buying 
a  boa-constrictor  as  buying  a  book.  He  or  she 
depends  for  intellectual  sustenance  upon  that 
happy  lottery  system  which  has  been  devised 
by  circulating  libraries,  and  with  which  Ameri- 
cans are  so  well  acquainted,  —  a  system  which 
enables  us  to  put  in  a  request  for  Darwin's 
"  Origin  of  Species,"  and  draw  out  the  Rev. 
W.  Profeit's  "  Creation  of  Matter  ;  "  to  put 
in  a  request  for  "  Lady  Rose's  Daughter,"  and 
draw  out  "  The  Little  Shepherd  of  Kingdom 
Come."  It  is  evident  that  reading  conducted 
on  this  basis  is  as  sure  a  path  to  cultivation 
as  a  roulette  table  is  to  wealth.  It  has  all  the 
charm  of  uncertainty,  and  all  the  value  of 
speculation.  It  eliminates  selection,  detaches 


84  COMPROMISES 

quantity  from  quality,  and  replaces  the  elusive 
balancing  of  results  by  the  unchallenged  roll- 
call  of  statistics.  It  expresses  that  unshaken 
belief  which  is  the  gospel  of  the  librarian,  — 
namely,  that  the  number  of  books  taken  from 
his  shelves  within  a  given  time  has  something 
to  do  with  the  educational  efficiency  of  his 
library. 

Our  power  of  self-deception  —  without  which 
we  should  shrivel  into  humility —  is  never  so 
comfortable  nor  so  resourceful  as  in  the  matter 
of  reading.  We  are  capable  of  believing,  not 
only  that  we  love  books  which  we  do  not  love, 
but  that  we  have  read  books  which  we  have 
not  read.  A  life-long  intimacy  with  their  titles, 
a  partial  acquaintance  with  modern  criticism, 
a  lively  recollection  of  many  familiar  quota- 
tions, —  these  things  come  in  time  to  be  mis- 
taken for  a  knowledge  of  the  books  themselves. 
Perhaps  in  youth  it  was  our  ambitious  purpose 
to  storm  certain  bulwarks  of  literature,  but  we 
were  deterred  by  their  unpardonable  length. 
It  is  a  melancholy  truth,  which  may  as  well 
be  acknowledged  in  the  start,  that  many  of 
the  books  best  worth  reading  are  very,  very 


OUR  BELIEF  IN  BOOKS  85 

long,  and  that  they  cannot,  without  mortal 
hurt,  be  shortened.  Nothing  less  than  ship- 
wreck on  a  desert  island  in  company  with 
Froissart's  "  Chronicles  "  would  give  us  leisure 
to  peruse  this  glorious  narrative,  and  it  is  use- 
less to  hope  for  such  a  happy  combination  of 
chances.  We  might  indeed  be  wrecked,  — 
that  is  always  a  possibility,  —  but  the  volume 
saved  dripping  from  the  deep  would  be  "  Sol- 
diers of  Fortune,"  or  "  Mrs.  Wiggs  of  the 
Cabbage  Patch." 

It  is  at  least  curious  that  if  people  love 
books  —  as  we  are  perpetually  assured  they 
do  —  they  should  need  so  much  persuasion  to 
read  them.  Societies  are  formed  for  mutual 
encouragement  and  support  in  this  engaging 
but  arduous  pursuit.  Optimistic  counsellors 
cheer  a  shrinking  public  to  its  task  by  recom- 
mending minute  quantities  of  intellectual  nour- 
ishment to  be  taken  twenty-four  hours  apart. 
They  urge  us  to  read  something  "  solid  "  for 
fifteen  minutes  a  day,  until  we  get  used  to  it, 
and  they  promise  us  that  —  mental  invalids 
though  we  be  —  we  can  assimilate  great  mas- 
terpieces in  doses  so  homoeopathic  that  we  need 


86  COMPROMISES 

hardly  know  we  are  taking  them.  But  this  is 
not  the  spirit  in  which  we  pursue  other  plea- 
sures. We  do  not  make  an  earnest  effort  to 
enjoy  our  friends  by  admitting  one  for  fifteen 
minutes'  conversation  every  morning.  If  we 
like  a  thing  at  all,  we  are  apt  to  like  a  good 
deal  of  it;  and  if  we  are  working  con  amore, 
we  are  wont  to  work  very  hard.  To  turn  to 
books,  as  Jeremy  Collier  counsels  us,  when  we 
are  weary  alike  of  solitude  and  companionship, 
to  value  them,  as  he  did,  because  they  help  us 
to  forget  "  the  crossness  of  men  and  things," 
is  to  pay  a  sincere,  but  not  an  ardent,  tribute 
to  their  worth.  Even  the  Bishop  of  Durham 
praised  his  library,  which  he  truly  loved,  be- 
cause it  soothed  his  unquiet  soul.  The  friendly 
volumes  forbore,  as  he  gratefully  noted,  either 
to  chide  his  errors  or  to  mock  at  his  igno- 
rance ;  and  there  were  contemporaries  —  like 
Petrarch  —  who  affirmed  that,  for  so  ardent 
a  bibliophile,  the  good  Bishop  had  no  great 
store  of  learning.  His  words  echo  pleasantly 
through  the  centuries,  breathing  the  secret  of 
quiet  hours  stolen  from  stormy  times  ;  and  we 
repeat  them,  wondering  less  at  their  eloquence 


OUR  BELIEF  IN  BOOKS  87 

than  at  their  moderation.  "  O  books,  who 
alone  are  liberal  and  free,  who  give  to  all  who 
ask  of  you,  and  enfranchise  all  who  serve  you 
faithfully." 


THE  BEGGAR'S  POUCH 

Just  Heayen !  for  what  wise  reasons  hast  thou  ordered 
it  that  beggary  and  urbanity,  which  are  at  such  variance  in 
other  countries,  should  find  a  way  to  be  at  unity  in  this  ?  — 
STERNE. 

A  RICH  American,  with  a  kind  heart  and  a 
lively  sense  of  humour,  was  heard  to  remark 
as  he  crossed  the  Italian  frontier,  en  route  for 
Switzerland  :  "  Now,  if  there  be  any  one  in  the 
length  and  breadth  of  Italy  who  has  not  yet 
begged  from  me,  this  is  his  time  to  come  for- 
ward." 

It  was  a  genial  invitation,  betokening  that 
tolerance  of  mind  rarely  found  in  the  travel- 
ling Saxon,  who  is  fortified  against  beggars,  as 
against  many  other  foreign  institutions,  by  a 
petition-proof  armour  of  finely  welded  principle 
and  prejudice.  He  disapproves  of  mendicancy 
in  general.  He  believes  —  or  he  says  he  be- 
lieves —  that  you  wrong  and  degrade  your  fel- 
low men  by  giving  them  money.  He  has  the 
assurance  of  his  guide-book  that  the  corps  of 


THE   BEGGAR'S   POUCH  89 

ragged  veterans  who  mount  guard  over  every 
church  door  in  Rome  are  unworthy  of  alms,  be- 
ing themselves  capitalists  on  no  ignoble  scale. 
His  irritation,  when  sore  beset,  is  natural  and 
pardonable.  His  arguments  are  not  easily  an- 
swered. He  can  be  vaguely  statistical,  —  real 
figures  are  hard  to  come  by  in  Italy, — he  can  be 
earnestly  philosophical,  he  can  quote  Mr.  Au- 
gustus Hare.  In  the  end,  he  leaves  you  per- 
plexed in  spirit  and  dull  of  heart,  with  six- 
pence saved  in  your  pocket,  and  the  memory  of 
pinched  old  faces  —  which  do  not  look  at  all 
like  the  faces  of  capitalists  at  home  —  spoiling 
your  appetite  for  dinner. 

This  may  be  right,  but  it  is  a  melancholy 
attitude  to  adopt  in  a  land  where  beggary 
is  an  ancient  and  not  dishonourable  profes- 
sion. All  art,  all  legend,  all  tradition,  tell  for 
the  beggar.  The  splendid  background  against 
which  he  stands  gives  colour  and  dignity  to 
his  part.  We  see  him  sheltered  by  St.  Julian, 
—  ah,  beautiful  young  beggar  of  the  Pitti !  — 
fed  by  St.  Elizabeth,  clothed  by  St*  Martin, 
warmed  by  the  fagots  which  St.  Francesca 
Romano  gathered  for  him  in  the  wintry  woods. 


90  COMPROMISES 

What  heavenly  blessings  have  followed  the 
charity  shown  to  his  needs !  What  evils  have 
followed  thick  and  fast  where  he  has  been  re- 
jected !  I  remember  these  things  when  I  meet 
his  piteous  face  and  outstretched  palm  to-day. 
It  is  true  that  the  Italian  beggar  almost  always 
takes  a  courteous,  or  even  an  impatient  denial 
in  wonderfully  good  part ;  but,  should  he  feel 
disposed  to  be  malevolent,  I  am  not  one  to  be 
indifferent  to  his  malevolence.  I  do  not  like  to 
hear  a  shaken  old  voice  wish  that  I  may  die 
unshriven.  There  are  too  many  possibilities 
involved. 

So  sang  a  withered  Sibyl  energetical, 

And  banned  the  ungiving  door  with  lips  prophetical. 

Mr.  Henry  James  is  of  the  opinion  (and  one 
envies  him  his  ability  to  hold  it)  that  "the 
sum  of  Italian  misery  is,  on  the  whole,  less 
than  the  sum  of  the  Italian  knowledge  of  life. 
That  people  should  thank  you,  with  a  smile  of 
enchanting  sweetness,  for  the  gift  of  twopence 
is  a  proof  certainly  of  an  extreme  and  constant 
destitution  ;  but  —  keeping  in  mind  the  sweet- 
ness —  it  is  also  a  proof  of  a  fortunate  ability 
not  to  be  depressed  by  circumstances."  This 


THE  BEGGAR'S   POUCH  91 

is  a  comforting  faith  to  foster,  and  more  cred- 
ible than  the  theory  of  secreted  wealth  within 
the  beggar's  pouch.  It  takes  a  great  many 
pennies  to  build  up  a  substantial  fortune,  and 
the  competition  in  mendicancy  is  too  keen  to 
permit  of  the  profits  being  large.  The  busi- 
ness, like  other  roads  to  fortune,  is  "  not 
what  it  once  was."  A  particularly  good  post, 
long  held  and  undisputed,  an  imposingly  vener- 
able and  patriarchal  appearance,  a  total  ab- 
sence of  legs  or  arms,  —  these  things  may  lead 
to  modest  competency ;  but  these  things  are 
rare  equipments.  My  belief  in  the  affluence 
of  beggars,  a  belief  I  was  cherishing  carefully 
for  the  sake  of  my  own  peace  of  mind,  re- 
ceived a  rude  shock  when  I  beheld  a  crippled 
old  woman,  whose  post  was  in  the  Piazza  S. 
Claudio,  tucked  into  a  doorway  one  cold  De- 
cember midnight,  her  idle  crutches  lying  on 
her  knees.  If  she  had  had  a  comfortable  or 
even  an  uncomfortable  home  to  go  to,  why 
should  she  have  stayed  to  shiver  and  freeze  in 
the  deserted  Roman  streets  ? 

The  latitude  extended  by  the  Italian  Church 
to  beggars,  the  patronage  shown  them,  never 


92  COMPROMISES 

ceases  to  vex  the  tourist  mind.  An  American 
cannot  reconcile  himself  to  marching  up  the 
church  steps  between  two  rows  of  mendicants, 
each  provided  with  a  chair,  a  little  scaldino, 
and  a  tin  cup,  in  which  a  penny  rattles  lustily. 
There  is  nothing  casual  about  the  appearance 
of  these  freeholders.  They  make  no  pretence 
—  as  do  beggars  at  home  —  of  sudden  emer- 
gency or  frustrated  hopes.  They  are  following 
their  daily  avocation,  —  the  only  one  for  which 
they  are  equipped,  —  and  following  it  in  a  spirit 
of  acute  and  healthy  rivalry.  To  give  to  one 
and  not  to  all  is  to  arouse  such  a  clamorous 
wail  that  it  seems,  on  the  whole,  less  stony- 
hearted to  refuse  altogether.  Once  inside  the 
sacred  walls,  we  find  a  small  and  well-selected 
body  of  practitioners  hovering  around  the  por- 
tals, waiting  to  exact  their  tiny  toll  when  we  are 
ready  to  depart.  "  Exact  "  is  not  too  strong  a 
word  to  use,  for  I  have  had  a  lame  but  comely 
young  woman,  dressed  in  decent  black,  with  a 
black  veil  framing  her  expressive  face,  hold  the 
door  of  the  Araco3li  firmly  barred  with  one  arm, 
while  she  swept  the  other  toward  me  in  a  ges- 
,  ture  so  fine,  so  full  of  mingled  entreaty  and 


THE   BEGGAR'S   POUCH  93 

command,  that  it  was  worth  double  the  fee 
she  asked.  Occasionally  —  not  often  —  an  in- 
trepid beggar  steals  around  during  Mass,  and, 
touching  each  member  of  the  congregation  on 
the  shoulder,  gently  implores  an  alms.  This  is 
a  practice  frowned  upon  as  a  rule,  save  in  Si- 
cily, where  a  "  plentiful  poverty  "  doth  so  abide 
that  no  device  for  moving  compassion  can  be 
too  rigidly  condemned.  I  have  been  present  at 
a  high  Mass  in  Palermo,  when  a  ragged  woman 
with  a  baby  in  her  arms  moved  slowly  after 
the  sacristan,  who  was  taking  up  the  offer- 
tory collection,  and  took  up  a  second  collec- 
tion of  her  own,  quite  as  though  she  were 
an  authorized  official.  It  was  a  scandalous 
sight  to  Western  eyes,  —  in  our  well-ordered 
churches  at  home  such  a  proceeding  would  be 
as  impossible  as  a  trapeze  performance  in  the 
aisle,  —  but  what  depths  of  friendly  tolerance 
it  displayed,  what  gentle,  if  inert,  compassion 
for  the  beggar's  desperate  needs ! 

For  in  Italy,  as  in  Spain,  there  is  no  gulf 
set  between  the  rich  and  poor.  What  these 
lands  lack  in  practical  philanthropy  is  atoned 
for  by  a  sweet  and  universal  friendliness  of  de- 


94  COMPROMISES 

meanour,  and  by  a  prompt  recognition  of  rights. 
It  would  be  hard  to  find  in  England  or  in 
America  such  tattered  rags,  such  gaunt  faces 
and  hungry  eyes ;  but  it  would  be  impossible 
to  find  in  Italy  or  in  Spain  a  church  where 
rags  are  relegated  to  some  inconspicuous  and 
appropriate  background.  The  Roman  beggar 
jostles  —  but  jostles  urbanely  —  the  Roman 
prince  ;  the  noblest  and  the  lowliest  kneel  side 
by  side  in  the  Cathedral  of  Seville.  I  have  heard 
much  all  my  life  about  the  spirit  of  equality, 
and  I  have  listened  to  fluent  sermons,  designed 
to  prove  that  Christians,  impelled  by  super- 
natural grace,  love  this  equality  with  especial 
fervour ;  but  I  have  never  seen  its  practical 
workings,  save  in  the  churches  of  southern 
Europe.  There  tired  mothers  hush  their  babies 
to  sleep,  and  wan  children  play  at  ease  in  their 
Father's  house.  There  I  have  been  privileged 
to  stand  for  hours,  during  long  and  beautiful 
services,  because  the  only  available  chairs  had 
been  appropriated  by  forlorn  creatures  who 
would  not  have  been  permitted  to  intrude  into 
the  guarded  pews  at  home. 

It  has  been  always  thus.    We  have  the  evi- 


THE  BEGGAR'S    POUCH  95 

dence  of  writers  who  give  it  with  reluctant 
sincerity;  of  Borrow,  for  example,  who  firmly 
believed  he  hated  many  things  for  which  he 
had  a  natural  and  visible  affinity.  "To  the 
honour  of  Spain  be  it  spoken,"  he  writes  in  "  The 
Bible  in  Spain,"  "  that  it  is  one  of  the  few  coun- 
tries in  Europe  where  poverty  is  never  insulted 
nor  looked  upon  with  contempt.  Even  at  an 
inn  the  poor  man  is  never  spurned  from  the 
door,  and,  if  not  harboured,  is  at  least  dismissed 
with  fair  words,  and  consigned  to  the  mercies 
of  God  and  His  Mother." 

The  more  ribald  Nash,  writing  centuries 
earlier,  finds  no  words  too  warm  in  which  to 
praise  the  charities  of  Catholic  Rome.  "  The 
bravest  Ladies,  in  gownes  of  beaten  gold, 
washing  pilgrims'  and  poor  soldiours'  f eete.  .  .  . 
This  I  must  say  to  the  shame  of  us  English ; 
if  good  workes  may  merit  Heaven,  they  doe 
them,  we  talk  about  them." 

The  Eoman  ladies  "  doe  them "  still ;  not 
so  picturesquely  as  they  did  three  hundred 
years  ago,  but  in  the  same  noble  and  delicate 
spirit.  Their  means  and  their  methods  are  far 
below  the  means  and  methods  of  charitable 


96  COMPROMISES 

organizations  in  England  and' America.  They 
cannot  find  work  where  there  is  no  work  to  be 
done.  They  cannot  lift  the  hopeless  burden  of 
want  which  is  the  inevitable  portion  of  the 
Italian  poor.  They  can  at  best  give  only  the 
scanty  loaf  which  keeps  starvation  from  the 
door.  They  cannot  educate  the  children,  nor 
make  the  swarming  populace  of  Rome  "  self- 
respecting,"  by  which  we  mean  self-supporting. 
But  they  can  and  do  respect  the  poverty  they 
alleviate.  Their  mental  attitude  is  simpler  than 
ours.  They  know  well  that  it  is  never  the 
wretchedly  poor  who  "fear  fate  and  cheat 
nature,"  and  they  see,  with  more  equanimity 
than  we  can  muster,  the  ever  recurring  tragedy 
of  birth.  The  hope,  so  dear  to  our  Western 
hearts,  of  ultimately  raising  the  whole  stand- 
ard of  humanity  shines  very  dimly  on  their  ho- 
rizon ;  but  if  they  plan  less  for  the  race,  they 
draw  closer  to  the  individual.  They  would 
probably,  if  questioned,  say  frankly  with  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  :  "  I  give  no  alms  only  to  sat- 
isfy the  hunger  of  my  Brother,  but  to  fulfil 
and  accomplish  the  Will  and  Command  of  my 
God."  And  if  the  "  Religio  Medici  "  be  some- 


THE  BEGGAR'S  POUCH  97 

what  out  of  date,  —  superseded,  we  are  told, 
by  a  finer  altruism  which  rejects  the  system 
of  reward,  —  we  may  still  remember  Mr. 
Pater's  half  rueful  admission  that  it  was  all 
"  pure  profit  "  to  its  holder. 

When  Charles  Lamb  lamented,  with  innate 
perversity,  the  decay  of  beggars,  he  merely 
withdrew  his  mind  from  actualities,  —  which 
always  annoyed  him,  —  and  set  it  to  contem- 
plate those  more  agreeable  figures  which  were 
not  suffering  under  the  disadvantage  of  exist- 
ence. It  was  the  beggar  of  romance,  of  the 
ballads,  of  the  countryside,  of  the  merry  old 
songs,  whose  departure  he  professed  to  regret. 
The  outcast  of  the  London  streets  could  not 
have  been  —  even  in  Lamb's  time  —  a  desir- 
able feature.  To-day  we  find  him  the  most  de- 
pressing object  in  the  civilized  world ;  and  the 
fact  that  he  is  what  is  called,  in  the  language 
of  the  philanthropist,  "  unworthy,"  makes  him 
no  whit  more  cheerful  of  contemplation.  The 
ragged  creature  who  rushes  out  of  the  dark- 
ness to  cover  the  wheel  of  your  hansom  with 
his  tattered  sleeve  manages  to  convey  to  your 
mind  a  sense  of  degraded  wretchedness,  calcu- 


98  COMPROMISES 

lated  to  lessen  the  happiness  of  living.  His 
figure  haunts  you  miserably,  when  you  want 
to  forget  him  and  be  light  of  heart.  By  his 
side,  the  venerable,  white-bearded  old  hum- 
bugs who  lift  the  leather  curtains  of  Roman 
and  Venetian  churches  stand  forth  as  cheer- 
ful embodiments  of  self-respecting  mendicancy. 
They,  at  least,  are  no  pariahs,  but  recognized 
features  of  the  social  system.  They  are  the 
Lord's  poor,  whose  prayers  are  fertile  in  bless- 
ings. It  is  kind  to  drop  a  coin  into  the  out- 
stretched hand,  and  to  run  the  risk  —  not  so 
appalling  as  we  seem  to  think  —  of  its  being 
unworthily  bestowed.  "  Rake  not  into  the 
bowels  of  unwelcome  truth  to  save  a  half- 
penny ;  "  but  remember,  rather,  the  ever-ready 
alms  of  Dr.  Johnson,  who  pitied  most  those 
who  were  least  deserving  of  compassion.  Little 
doubt  that  he  was  often  imposed  upon.  The 
fallen  women  went  on  their  way,  sinning  as 
before.  The  "  old  struggler "  probably  spent 
his  hard-earned  shilling  for  gin.  The  sick 
beggar  whom  he  carried  on  his  back  should 
by  rights  have  been  languishing  in  the  poor- 
house.  But  the  human  quality  of  his  kindness 


THE  BEGGARS  POUCH  99 

made  it  a  vital  force,  incapable  of  waste.  It 
warmed  sad  hearts  in  his  unhappy  time,  as  it 
warms  our  sad  hearts  now.  Like  the  human 
kindness  of  St.  Martin,  it  still  remains  —  a 
priceless  heritage  —  to  enrich  us  poor  beggars 
in  sentiment  to-day. 

And  this  reminds  me  to  ask  —  without  hope 
of  answer  —  if  the  blessed  St.  Martin  can  be 
held  responsible  for  the  number  of  beggars  in 
Tours  ?  The  town  is  not  pinched  and  hunger- 
bitten  like  the  sombre  old  cities  of  Italy,  but 
possesses  rather  an  air  of  comfort  and  gracious 
prosperity.  It  is  in  the  heart  of  a  province 
where  cruel  poverty  is  unknown,  and  where 
"  thrift  and  success  present  themselves  as  mat- 
ters of  good  taste."  Yet  we  cannot  walk  half 
an  hour  in  Tours  without  meeting  a  number  of 
highly  respectable  beggars,  engrossed  in  their 
professional  duties.  They  do  not  sin  against 
the  harmony  of  their  surroundings  by  any 
revolting  demonstration  of  raggedness  or  pen- 
ury. On  the  contrary,  they  are  always  neat 
and  decent ;  and  on  Sundays  have  an  aspect 
of  such  unobtrusive  well-being  that  one  would 
never  suspect  them  of  mendicancy.  When  a 


100  COMPROMISES 

clean,  comfortably  dressed  old  gentleman,  with 
a  broad  straw  hat,  and  a  rosebud  in  his  button- 
hole, crosses  the  street  to  affably  ask  an  alms, 
I  own  I  am  surprised,  until  I  remember  St. 
Martin,  who,  fifteen  hundred  years  ago,  shared 
his  mantle  with  the  beggar  shivering  by  the 
way.  It  was  at  Amiens  that  the  incident  oc- 
curred, but  the  soldier  saint  became  in  time 
the  apostle  and  bishop  of  Tours ;  wherefore  it 
is  in  Tours,  and  not  in  Amiens,  that  beggars  do 
plentifully  abound  to-day ;  it  is  in  Tours,  and 
not  in  Amiens,  that  the  charming  old  tale  moves 
us  to  sympathy  with  their  not  very  obvious 
needs.  They  are  an  inheritance  bequeathed  us 
by  the  saint.  They  are  in  strict  accord  with 
the  traditions  of  the  place.  I  am  told  that  giv- 
ing sous  to  old  men  at  church  doors  is  not  a 
practical  form  of  benevolence  ;  but  neither  was 
it  practical  to  cut  a  military  cloak  in  two. 
Something  must  be  allowed  to  impulse,  some- 
thing to  the  generous  unreason  of  humanity. 

And,  after  all,  it  is  not  begging,  but  only 
the  beggar  who  has  forfeited  favour  with  the 
elect.  We  are  begged  from  on  an  arrogantly 
large  scale  all  our  lives,  and  we  are  at  liberty 


THE  BEGGAR'S  POUCH  101 

to  beg  from  others.  It  may  be  wrong  to  give 
ten  cents  to  a  legless  man  at  a  street  corner ; 
but  it  is  right,  and  even  praiseworthy,  to  send 
ten  tickets  for  some  dismal  entertainment  to 
our  dearest  friend,  who  must  either  purchase 
the  dreaded  things  or  harass  her  friends  in 
turn.  If  we  go  to  church,  we  are  confronted 
by  a  system  of  begging  so  complicated  and  so 
resolute  that  all  other  demands  sink  into  insig- 
nificance by  its  side.  Mr.  John  Richard  Green, 
the  historian,  was  wont  to  maintain  that  the 
begging  friar  of  the  pre-reform  period,  "  who 
at  any  rate  had  the  honesty  to  sing  for  his  sup- 
per, and  preach  a  merry  sermon  from  the  port- 
able pulpit  he  carried  round,"  had  been  far 
outstripped  by  a  "finer  mendicant,"  the  beg- 
ging rector  of  to-day.  A  hospital  nurse  once 
told  me  that  she  was  often  too  tired  to  go  to 
church  —  when  free  —  on  Sundays.  "  But  it 
does  n't  matter  whether  I  go  or  not,"  she  said 
with  serious  simplicity,  "  because  in  our  church 
we  have  the  envelope  system."  When  asked 
what  the  system  was  which  thus  lifted  church- 
going  from  the  number  of  Christian  obliga- 
tions, she  explained  that  envelopes  marked 


102  COMPROMISES 

with  each  Sunday's  date  were  distributed  to  the 
congregation,  and  duly  returned  with  a  quarter 
inclosed.  When  she  stayed  at  home,  she  sent 
the  envelope  to  represent  her.  The  collecting 
of  the  quarters  being  the  pivotal  feature  of  the 
Sunday's  service,  her  duty  was  fulfilled. 

With  this,  and  many  similar  recollections  in 
my  mind,  I  own  I  am  disposed  to  think  leni- 
ently of  Italy's  church-door  mendicants.  How 
moderate  their  demands,  how  disproportionate 
their  gratitude,  how  numberless  their  disap- 
pointments, how  unfailing  their  courtesy!  I 
can  push  back  a  leather  curtain  for  myself,  I 
can  ring  a  sacristan's  bell.  But  the  patriarch 
who  relieves  me  of  these  duties  has  some  dim, 
mysterious  right  to  stand  in  my  way,  —  a  right 
I  cannot  fathom,  but  will  not  pretend  to  dis- 
pute. He  is,  after  all,  a  less  insistent  beggar 
than  are  the  official  guardians  of  galleries  and 
museums,  who  relieve  the  unutterable  weari- 
ness of  their  idle  days  by  following  me  from 
room  to  room  with  exasperating  explanations, 
until  I  pay  them  to  go  away.  I  have  heard 
tourists  protest  harshly  against  the  ever-recur- 
ring obligation  of  giving  pennies  to  the  old 


THE  BEGGAR'S  POUCH  103 

men  who,  in  Venice,  draw  their  gondolas  to 
shore,  and  push  them  out  again.  They  say  — 
what  is  perfectly  true  —  that  it  is  an  extortion 
to  be  compelled  to  pay  for  unasked  and  unne- 
cessary services,  and  they  generally  add  some- 
thing about  not  minding  the  money.  It  is  the 
principle  of  the  thing  to  which  they  are  op- 
posed. But  these  picturesque  accessories  of 
Venetian  life  are,  for  the  most  part,  worn-out 
gondoliers,  whose  days  of  activity  are  over,  and 
who  are  saved  from  starvation,  only  by  the 
semblance  of  service  they  perform.  Their  suc- 
cessors connive  at  their  pretence  of  usefulness, 
knowing  that  some  day  they,  too,  must  drop 
their  oars,  and  stand  patiently  waiting,  hook  in 
hand,  for  the  chance  coin  that  is  so  grudgingly 
bestowed.  That  it  should  be  begrudged  —  even 
on  principle  —  seems  strange  to  those  whose 
love  for  Venice  precludes  the  possibility  of 
fault-finding.  The  graybeards  sunning  them- 
selves on  the  marble  steps  are  as  much  a  part 
of  the  beautiful  city  as  are  the  gondoliers  sil- 
houetted against  the  sky,  or  the  brown  boys 
paddling  in  the  water.  Such  old  age  is  meagre, 
but  not  wholly  forlorn.  A  little  food  keeps 


104  COMPROMISES 

body  and  soul  together,  and  life  yields  sweet- 
ness to  the  end.  "  It  takes  a  great  deal  to 
make  a  successful  American,"  confesses  Mr. 
James ;  "  but  to  make  a  happy  Venetian  takes 
only  a  handful  of  quick  sensibility.  .  .  .  Not 
the  misery  of  Italians,  but  the  way  they  elude 
their  misery,  is  what  pleases  the  sentimental 
tourist,  who  is  gratified  by  the  sight  of  a  beau- 
tiful race  that  lives  by  the  aid  of  its  imagina- 
tion." 


THE   PILGRIM'S  STAFF 

Thries  hadde  she  been  at  Jerusalem  ; 
She  hadde  passed  many  a  straunge  strem  ; 
At  Rome  she  hadde  been,  and  at  Boloigne, 
At  Galice  at  Seint  Jame,  and  at  Coloigne  ; 
She  koude  muchel  of  wandrynge  by  the  weye. 

CHAUCER. 

THE  spirit  that  animated  the  Crusader  ani- 
mated the  pilgrim.  Piety,  curiosity,  the  love 
of  God  and  the  love  of  adventure,  the  natural 
sentiment  which  makes  one  spot  of  ground  more 
hallowed  than  another,  —  a  sentiment  as  old  as 
religion,  —  the  natural  restlessness  of  the  hu- 
man heart,  —  a  restlessness  as  old  as  humanity. 
With  the  decay  of  the  Crusades  began  the  pas- 
sion for  pilgrimages,  which  reached  its  height 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  but  which  at  a  much 
earlier  period  had  begun  to  send  men  wander- 
ing from  land  to  land,  and  from  sea  to  sea, 
broadening  their  outlook,  sharpening  their  in- 
telligence, uniting  them  in  a  common  bond  of 
faith  and  sympathy,  teaching  them  to  observe 
the  virtues  of  hospitality,  courtesy,  and  kind- 


106  COMPROMISES 

ness.  Much  has  been  urged  against  the  pil- 
grim, even  the  genuine  pilgrim ;  but  it  counts 
for  little  when  contrasted  with  his  merits. 
His  was  not  the  wisdom  of  Franklin.  He 
spent  time,  strength,  and  money  with  reck- 
less prodigality.  He  neglected  duties  near  at 
hand;  he  ran  sharp  risks  of  shipwreck,  rob- 
bers, and  pestilence.  But  he  was  lifted,  for  a 
time  at  least,  out  of  the  common  round  of  life  ; 
he  aspired,  however  lamely,  after  spiritual 
growth ;  and  he  assisted  the  slow  progress  of 
civilization  by  breaking  through  the  barriers 
which  divided  nation  from  nation  in  the  re- 
moteness of  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  universality  of  a  custom  is  pledge  of 
its  worth.  Pious  Egyptians  speeding  along  the 
waterways  to  the  temple  of  Bubastis;  pious 
Hindoos  following  from  hermitage  to  hermit- 
age the  footsteps  of  the  exiled  Rama ;  pious 
Moslems  making  their  painful  journey  to 
Mecca ;  pious  Christians  turning  their  rapt 
faces  to  Palestine,  —  from  the  dawn  of  history 
to  the  present  day  we  see  the  long  procession 
of  pilgrims  moving  to  and  fro  over  the  little 
earth,  linking  shore  to  shore  and  century  to 


THE  PILGRIM'S   STAFF  107 

century*  Never  without  disaster,  never  with- 
out privations,  never  without  the  echoes  of  dis- 
paragement, never  wholly  discouraged  nor 
abashed,  the  procession  winds  brokenly  along. 
The  pilgrims  who  visit  Lourdes  in  this  year 
of  grace  are  not  mere  victims  of  a  spasmodic 
enthusiasm.  They  are  the  inheritors  of  the 
world's  traditions  and  of  the  world's  emotions. 
Alexander,  Bishop  of  Cappadocia,  made  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land  in  the  year  202. 
He  was  by  no  means  the  first  ecclesiastic  to 
undertake  the  journey,  but  the  records  that  sur- 
vive from  this  period  of  limited  authorship 
are  few  and  far  between.  It  was  not  until  a 
century  later  that  the  Empress  Helena  stirred 
the  hearts  of  Christendom,  and  gave  the  im- 
petus that  sent  thousands  of  pilgrims  to  follow 
the  footsteps  of  the  Redeemer.  Many  who 
could  not  reach  Palestine  travelled  as  far  as 
Rome,  to  pray  at  the  tombs  of  St.  Peter  and 
St.  Paul.  From  time  to  time  the  church 
gently  checked  an  enthusiasm  which  over- 
stepped the  bounds  of  reason.  Women,  then 
condemned  to  much  staying  at  home,  showed 
an  ardour  for  pilgrimage  as  natural  as  it  was 


108  COMPROMISES 

disconcerting.  Nuns  joyously  welcomed  the  op- 
portunity to  leave,  without  broken  vows,  their 
convent  walls,  and  tread  for  a  time  the  beaten 
paths  of  earth.  They  found  shelter  on  the 
road  in  other  houses  of  religion,  where  all  such 
devout  wanderers  were  lodged  and  generously 
entertained. 

For  the  virtues  which  blossomed  most  fairly 
along  the  pilgrim's  track  were  chivalry  and  hos- 
pitality. For  him  a  brotherhood  of  knights 
guarded  the  robber-haunted  forests  of  Ger- 
many. For  him  the  Spanish  nobles  kept  watch 
and  ward  over  their  mountain  passes.  For 
him  the  galleys  of  St.  John  swept  the  Med- 
iterranean in  search  of  Algerine  pirates.  For 
him  the  Hospitalers  built  their  first  asylum. 
For  him  rang  out  the  Templar's  battle-cry, 
"  Beauceant !  Beauceant !  "  as  the  dreaded  ban- 
ner of  black  and  white  bore  down  into  the  fray. 
The  pilgrim  paid  no  tithes  nor  tolls.  Mon- 
asteries opened  to  him  their  gates.  In  every 
seaport,  and  in  many  a  royal  burgh,  houses 
were  erected  and  maintained  for  his  accommo- 
dation. In  Calais  stood  the  old  Maison  Dieu, 
with  its  wide,  hospitable  doors.  Coventry  was 


THE  PILGRIM'S   STAFF  109 

the  first  of  English  towns  to  provide  a  simi- 
lar shelter.  These  houses  were  either  endowed 
by  pious  benefactors  or  were  supported  by  the 
strong  and  wealthy  guilds.  In  Lincoln,  the 
Guild  of  the  Resurrection,  founded  in  1374, 
had  the  following  rule  :  "  If  any  brother  wishes 
to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  to  Saint  James 
of  Galicia,  or  to  the  Holy  Land,  he  shall  fore- 
warn the  Guild  ;  and  all  the  members  shall  go 
with  him  to  the  city  gate,  and  each  shall  give 
him  at  least  a  half -penny."  Other  guilds  lent 
weightier  service.  Turn  where  we  may,  we  see 
on  every  side  the  animosities  of  nations  soft- 
ened and  the  self-seeking  of  the  human  heart 
subdued  by  the  force  of  that  esprit  de  corps 
which  bound  hard-fighting  Christendom  to- 
gether. 

Rivalry  there  was  in  plenty,  as  shrine  after 
shrine  rose  into  fame  and  fortune.  Palestine 
lay  far  away,  and  the  journey  thither  was  be- 
set by  difficulties  and  dangers.  Rome  held 
the  great  relics  which  from  earliest  years  had 
drawn  thousands  of  pilgrims  to  worship  at  her 
altars.  Spain  came  next  in  degree,  with  the 
famous  shrine  of  Coinpostella  in  Galicia,  where 


110  COMPROMISES 

lay  the  bones  of  her  patron,  St.  James.  So 
popular  was  this  pilgrimage  that  in  the  year 
1434  no  less  than  2460  licenses  were  granted 
in  England  to  travellers  bound  for  Compo- 
stella.  Cologne  claimed  the  relics  of  the  Magi ; 
France,  the  Holy  Coat  of  Treves,  the  shrine  of 
St.  Martin  of  Tours,  and  the  beautiful  pilgrim- 
age churches  of  Boulogne  and  Eocamadour. 
The  last,  fair  still  in  its  decay,  was  one  of  the 
most  celebrated  in  Europe.  Great  kings  and 
greater  soldiers,  Simon  de  Montfort  among 
them,  had  come  as  penitents  to  its  rock-built 
sanctuary ;  and  so  many  English  were  counted 
among  its  visitors  that  we  find  that  arch- 
grumbler,  Piers  Plowman,  bitterly  conjuring 
his  countrymen  to  stay  away. 

Right  so,  if  thou  be  Religious,  renne  thou  never  ferther 
To  Rome  ne  to  Rochemadore. 

In  good  truth  there  were  shrines  in  plenty 
at  home.  Glastonbury,  the  resting-place  of 
Joseph  of  Arimathea,  where  grew  the  holy 
thorn-tree  ;  Bury  Saint  Edmunds,  where  all 
might  see  the  standard  of  the  martyred  king, 
and  where,  to  keep  it  company,  Coeur  de  Lion 
aent  the  captured  banner  of  the  king  of  Cy- 


THE  PILGRIM'S   STAFF  111 

prus  ;  Waltham,  or  Holy  Cross  Abbey,  founded 
by  that  devout  and  warlike  Dane,  Tovi,  to 
guard  the  mysterious  cross  of  black  marble,  of 
which  none  knew  the  history;  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor's tomb  at  Westminster ;  Our  Lady  of 
Walsingham,  the  best-loved  church  in  England; 
and  the  ever-famous  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  a 
Becket  at  Canterbury.  "  Optimus  aegrorum  me- 
dicus  fit  Thomas  Bonorum,"  was  the  motto  en- 
graved on  the  little  pewter  flasks  brought  back 
by  Canterbury  pilgrims.  "  For  good  people 
who  are  ill,  Thomas  is  the  best  of  physicians." 
Miracles  apart,  it  was  well  to  take  the  open 
road,  and  to  live  for  a  few  days,  or  for  a  few 
weeks,  in  rain  and  sunshine.  It  was  well  to 
escape  the  dreadful  ministrations  of  doctors, 
and  trust  to  St.  Thomas,  who  at  all  events 
would  not  bleed  and  purge  his  patient's  life 
away.  It  was  well  to  quit  the  foulness  of  the 
towns,  to  push  aside  the  engrossing  cares  of 
life,  and  to  see  the  fair  face  of  an  English 
summer. 

I  think  the  long  ride  in  the  open  air, 
That  pilgrimage  over  stocks  and  stones, 
In  the  miracle  must  come  in  for  a  share  !- 


112  COMPROMISES 

Many  a  cure  was  wrought  before  the  shrine 
was  gained,  and  a  hopeful  heart  is  ever  a  tonic 
for  body  and  soul  together.  The  most  constant 
and  the  most  curious  reproach  cast  by  reform- 
ers at  the  pilgrims  is  that  they  were  cheerful, 
even  merry,  and  that  they  went  their  way  in 
what  seems  to  have  been  an  irritating  spirit 
of  enjoyment.  One  Master  William  Thorpe,  a 
sour  and  godly  man,  protested  sternly  in  1407 
against  the  number  of  "  men  and  women  that 
go  on  pilgrimages  to  Canterbury,  to  Beverley, 
to  Karlington,  to  Walsinghame,  or  to  any  such 
other  places  "  !  His  accusations  were  three  in 
number.  The  pilgrims  spent  "  their  goodes  in 
waste,"  —  which  was  true.  They  boasted,  not 
always  truthfully,  of  what  they  had  seen,  — 
a  reprehensible  habit  of  travellers  since  man 
first  roamed  the  earth.  And,  worst  of  all,  they 
sang,  rang  little  bells,  —  the  Canterbury  bells, 
—  and  made  a  joyous  clatter  on  the  road.  To 
this,  Thomas  Arundel,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, deeming  light  hearts  as  near  to  grace  as 
sad  ones,  stoutly  replied  that  pilgrims  did  well 
to  sing  and  be  as  cheerful  as  the  hardships  of 
the  way  permitted.  If  a  man's  foot  were  cut 


THE  PILGRIM'S    STAFF  113 

and  bleeding,  it  were  better  for  him  to  sing 
than  to  be  silent,  "  for  with  soche  solace  the 
travell  and  wearinesse  of  pylgremes  is  lightely 
and  inerily  broughte  forthe." 

Not  all  pilgrimages,  however,  were  under- 
taken in  this  jocund  spirit.  Figures  terrible 
and  tragic  loom  up  in  the  darkness  of  history. 
Fulk  Nerra,  the  black  Count  of  Anjou,  driven 
like  Orestes  by  the  stings  of  conscience,  wan- 
dered from  shrine  to  shrine,  seeking  pardon 
for  nameless  crimes.  By  his  own  command  he 
was  dragged  barefooted  through  the  streets  of 
Jerusalem,  his  blood  running  down  beneath  the 
pitiless  strokes  of  the  scourge.  From  Guyenne 
to  Picardy  walked  two  noble  Breton  brothers, 
their  heavy  chains  eating  into  their  flesh,  their 
heavier  hearts  burdened  with  unendurable  re- 
morse. Even  less  sinful  men  were  sometimes 
inclined  to  penitence.  The  Lord  of  Joinville, 
before  setting  forth  with  St.  Louis  on  the 
Seventh  Crusade,  walked  in  his  shirt  to  every 
shrine  within  twenty  leagues  of  his  castle,  im- 
ploring strength  of  arm  and  grace  of  soul.  In 
blither  mood,  the  Viscount  De  Werchin,  Sen- 
eschal of  Hainault,  started  upon  a  pilgrimage 


114  COMPROMISES 

to  St.  James  of  Compostella.  The  journey  was 
long,  and  by  way  of  diversifying  it,  the  good 
Seneschal  despatched  messengers  announcing 
his  readiness  to  meet  any  knight,  French,  Eng- 
lish, or  Spanish,  who  would  engage  with  him  in 
a  friendly  passage  of  arms.  That  none  who 
coveted  this  distinction  might  be  so  unfortunate 
as  to  lose  it,  he  gave  his  itinerary  with  great 
care,  and  even  offered  to  turn  aside  from  his 
road  as  far  as  twenty  leagues,  for  the  felicity 
of  a  little  fighting.  Surely  St.  James,  the  pa- 
tron of  soldiers,  who  has  himself  turned  the 
tide  of  more  than  one  hard-fought  battle,  must 
have  smiled  kindly  upon  that  brave  and  pious 
pilgrim,  when  he  knelt  in  his  battered  armour 
before  the  glittering  shrine. 

Kings  and  princes  frequently  went  upon 
pilgrimages.  The  sprig  of  broom,  the  planta 
genistae,  destined  to  give  its  name  to  a  great 
and  royal  line,  was  worn  by  Geoffrey  of  Anjou 
—  some  said  in  token  of  humility  —  when 
he  journeyed  to  the  Holy  Land.  Henry  the 
Second  of  England  travelled  piously  to  Roca- 
madour,  and  four  English  Edwards  knelt  in 
turn  at  the  feet  of  Our  Lady  of  Walsingham. 


THE  PILGRIM'S   STAFF 

Jusserand  tells  us  that  the  royal  fee  on  such 
occasions  was  seven  shillings ;  the  ordinances 
of  Edward  the  Second  make  especial  mention 
of  the  sum.  It  does  not  seem  munificent,  when 
we  remember  that  Canute  took  off  his  crown 
and  laid  it  on  St.  Edmund's  shrine ;  but 
there  were  occasions  when  even  seven  shillings 
were  notably  lacking.  The  Chronicles  of  Joce- 
lin  of  Brakelond,  quoted  by  Carlyle  in  "  Past 
and  Present,"  relate  minutely  how  King  John 
came  to.  St.  Edmundsbury  with  a  large  reti- 
nue, how  he  gave  the  abbot  thirteen  pence, 
beseeching  in  return  a  Mass,  and  presented  to 
the  shrine  a  silken  cloak,  which  was  carried 
promptly  away  by  one  of  his  followers,  so  that 
the  monks  beheld  it  no  more.  When  Henry 
the  Eighth  and  Catharine  of  Aragon  visited 
Walsingham,  the  king  hung  around  the  stat- 
ue's neck  a  string  of  pearls  and  golden  beads, 
and  perhaps  was  not  unmoved  subsequently  by 
a  desire  to  have  it  back  again. 

"  Of  all  our  Ladyes,  I  love  best  our  Lady 
of  Walsyngham,"  says  Sir  Thomas  More  in  one 
of  his  "Dyalogues,"  reflecting  the  common 
sentiment  of  the  past  three  hundred  years,  and 


116  COMPROMISES 

defending  the  ancient  custom  of  pilgrimages 
from  the  raillery  of  Erasmus.  The  road  to 
Walsingham,  like  the  road  to  Canterbury,  was 
called  the  "  Pilgrims'  Way ; "  the  town  was 
full  of  inns  and  lodgings  for  the  accommodation 
of  the  devout,  and  "manye  faire  myracles" 
were  witnessed  at  the  shrine.  When  the  Nor- 
man knight,  Sir  Raaf  de  Boitetourt,  fled  from 
his  burning  castle,  he  sought  refuge  at  Wal- 
singham, where  for  seven  years  he  had  kept 
vigil  on  the  eve  of  Epiphany.  Hard  pressed, 
he  reached  the  doors,  and  the  Virgin,  mindful 
of  faithful  service,  opened  them  with  her  own 
hands,  and  drew  him  swiftly  and  gently  within 
her  blessed  walls. 

Frequent  mention  is  made  of  Walsingham 
in  state  papers  and  in  family  chronicles.  The 
Paston  letters  contain  numerous  allusions  to 
this  popular  shrine.  John  Paston's  wife,  trou- 
bled by  the  news  of  her  husband's  illness, 
writes  to  him  lovingly  :  "  My  mother  behested 
[vowed]  another  image  of  wax  of  the  weight 
of  you  to  our  Lady  of  Walsingham ;  and  she 
sent  four  nobles  to  the  four  orders  of  friars 
at  Norwich  to  pray  for  you ;  and  I  have  be- 


THE  PILGRIM'S   STAFF  117 

hested  a  pilgrimage  to  Walsingham  and  to  St. 
Leonards  for  you."  Again,  Justice  Yelverton 
thanks  John  Paston,  "  especially  for  that  ye  do 
much  for  our  Lady's  house  at  Walsingham, 
which  I  trust  verily  ye  do  the  rather  for  the 
great  love  that  ye  deem  I  have  thereto ;  for 
truly  if  I  be  drawn  to  any  worship  or  wel- 
fare, and  discharge  of  mine  enemies'  danger,  I 
ascribe  it  unto  our  Lady." 

In  proportion  to  the  piety  of  the  pilgrim 
flames  the  wrath  of  the  reformer.  Denuncia- 
tions from  poets  of  a  radical  turn,  like  Lang- 
land  and  Skelton,  echo  shrilly  through  English 
letters. 

Pylgrimis  and  palmers  plyghten  hem  togederes, 
To  seken  seint  James  and  seintes  at  Rome, 
Wenten  forth  in  hure  way  with  many  unwyse  tales, 
And  haven  leve  to  lyen  alle  hure  lyf-tyme. 

This  sounds  like  the  bitterness  of  the  stay-at- 
home,  resenting  with  his  whole  soul  the  allure- 
ment of  travellers'  tales, — tales  to  which  Chau- 
cer lent  a  tolerant  ear.  A  century  and  a  half 
later,  when  reform  had  had  its  way,  when  the 
relics  of  St.  Thomas  had  been  scattered  to  the 
winds,  when  our  Lady's  image  had  been  flung 


118  COMPROMISES 

from  its  .altar  into  the  nearest  well,  and  Cran- 
mer  in  his  "  Catechism  "  had  alluded  to  vows 
and  pilgrimages  as  half-forgotten  errors,  one 
poor  faithful  soul  was  accused  in  1542  of  going 
to  Walsingham,  —  not  blithely,  indeed,  with 
song  and  ringing  of  bells,  but  sad,  fearful,  and 
forlorn,  to  pray  at  the  defaced  and  empty 
shrine. 

There  was  a  little  chapel  built  on  one  of  the 
eastern  piers  of  old  London  Bridge,  and  dedi- 
cated to  St.  Thomas  a  Becket.  Hither  came 
the  pilgrims  bound  for  Canterbury,  or  for  the 
far-off  shrines  of  Compostella  and  Kocamadour, 
to  beg  a  blessing  on  their  journey  ;  and  many 
were  the  curious  eyes  that  watched  them  faring 
forth.  To-day,  when  no  spot  is  remote,  and  no- 
thing is  unknown,  it  is  hard  to  understand  the 
interest  which  once  attached  itself  to  the  wan- 
derer, or  to  realize  his  importance  as  a  link  in 
the  human  chain.  At  a  time  when  the  mass  of 
mankind  learned  orally  what  it  learned  at  all, 
when  news  crept  slowly  over  the  country-side, 
and  rumour  passed  from  one  village  ale-house 
to  another,  people  were  preserved  from  mental 
stagnation  by  the  "  unwyse  tales  "  which  Lang- 


THE  PILGRIM'S   STAFF  119 

land  found  so  reprehensible.  They  heard  how 
a  fair  and  famous  courtesan,  smitten  with 
blindness,  travelled  to  Rocamadour,  beseech- 
ing a  cure,  and  how,  kneeling  outside  the 
walls,  she  was  withheld  by  an  invisible  power 
from  entering  the  sanctuary.  Then,  confess- 
ing her  sins  with  tears  and  lamentations,  she 
cut  off  her  beautiful  hair,  — 

A  net 

Wherein  no  more  shall  souls  be  snared  and  slain, 

and  offered  it  to  the  Virgin  in  token  of  amend- 
ment. This  being  done,  the  barrier  was  lifted, 
she  hastened  into  the  church,  "  giving  praise 
to  the  Mother  of  God,"  and  sight  was  restored 
to  her  eyes.' 

Many  were  the  miracles  related  by  pilgrims, 
and  bewildering  were  the  wonders  they  de- 
scribed. The  zeal  for  relics  having  far  outrun 
discretion,  a  vast  hoard  of  heterogeneous  and 
apocryphal  objects  had  been  collected  in  every 
church,  and  were  reverenced  indiscriminately 
by  the  devout.  They  were  less  grisly,  but 
hardly  less  marvellous  than  the  weapons  which 
Christian  found  in  the  house  of  Prudence, 
Piety,  and  Charity,  when  these  benevolent 


120  COMPROMISES 

ladies  exhibited  to  their  guest  the  "engines 
with  which  God's  servants  had  done  wonderful 
things."  Christian's  delight  over  the  hammer 
and  nail  with  which  Jael  killed  Sisera,  the 
sling  and  stone  with  which  David  killed  Goliath, 
the  jaw  bone  of  an  ass  with  which  Samson 
killed  the  Philistines,  and  the  ox  goad  with 
which  Shamgar  killed  six  hundred  of  his  ene- 
mies, is  but  the  reflection  of  a  gentler  senti- 
ment which  stirred  the  pilgrim's  heart.  Our 
ancestors  were  not  wont  to  reason  very  dis- 
tinctly on  these  or  on  other  matters ;  the  ab- 
normal offered  no  obstacle  to  their  credulity ; 
and  the  complete  absence  of  an  historic  back- 
ground annihilated  for  them  a  dozen  and  more 
intervening  centuries.  The  Holy  Coat  carried 
them  in  spirit  to  Nazareth,  the  Veil  of  Vero- 
nica led  them  to  the  foot  of  the  Cross.  When 
told  that  the  head  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  re- 
posed in  a  church  at  Amiens,  they  neither  cal- 
culated the  probabilities  of  the  case  nor  in- 
quired into  ways  and  means.  When  a  few  far- 
travelled  pilgrims  heard  that  the  same  relic  was 
claimed  by  a  church  in  Constantinople,  they 
either  became  partisans  — a  natural  sentiment 


THE  PILGRIM'S   STAFF  121 

—  or  argued  with  the  simple  sagacity  of  Sir 
John  Mandeville.  Which  was  the  true  head  he 
could  not  tell.  "  I  wot  nere  but  God  knowethe; 
but  in  what  wyse  that  men  worschippen  it,  the 
blessed  seynte  John  holt  him  a-payd." 

This  is  the  pith  and  marrow  of  the  argu- 
ment. Pilgrims,  reaching  back  dimly  into  a 
shrouded  past,  grasped  at  the  relic  which  bridged 
for  them  the  chasm,  and  felt  the  mysterious 
blessedness  of  association.  If  it  were  not  what 
it  was  believed  to  be,  the  saints,  well  aware 
both  of  men's  fallibility  and  of  their  good  faith, 
would  undoubtedly  "  holt  them  a-payd."  The 
same  sentiment  hallowed  countless  shrines,  and 
found  expression  in  the  sygnys  or  medals 
which  then,  as  now,  played  a  prominent  part 
in  pilgrimages. »  We  know  how  little  such  cus- 
toms change  when  we  read  of  the  fourteenth- 
century  pilgrims  at  Rocamadour,  and  see  the 
twentieth-century  pilgrims  at  Lourdes.  The 
Eocamadour  medals  were  made  of  pewter, 
stamped  with  an  image  of  the  Virgin,  and 
pierced  with  holes  so  that  they  could  be  sewn 
to  the  cap  or  dress.  The  right  to  make  and  sell 
them  belonged  exclusively  to  the  family  of  De 


122  COMPROMISES 

Valon,  and  had  been  granted  by  the  crown  in 
return  for  military  service.  So  large  were  the 
sales,  and  so  comfortable  the  profits,  that  the 
thrifty  townspeople  constantly  infringed  upon 
the  seignorial  privilege,  and  flooded  the  mar- 
ket, in  defiance  of  all  authority,  with  contra- 
band medals,  —  a  pardonable  offence,  not  with- 
out parallel  in  every  age  and  land. 

The  Canterbury  sygnys  were  in  the  shape 
of  little  flasks  ;  at  Compostella  they  were 
minute  cockle-shells  ;  at  Amiens  they  bore  the 
head  of  St.  John  the  Baptist :  "  Ecce  signum 
faciei  beati  Johannis  Baptistae."  So  pleased 
were  pilgrims  with  these  devices,  and  so  proud 
to  wear  the  mementoes  of  their  piety,  —  as 
the  Moslem,  returned  from  Mecca,  wears  his 
green  turban,  —  that  we  find  Erasmus  mock- 
ing at  their  appearance  "  clothyd  with  cockle- 
schelles,  and  laden  on  every  side  with  bunches 
of  lead  and  tynne."  There  is  not  a  shrine  in 
Europe  to-day  unprovided  with  similar  tokens. 
At  Auray,  medals  of  St.  Anne ;  at  Padua, 
medals  of  St.  Anthony ;  at  Avila,  medals  of 
St.  Theresa ;  at  Prague,  medals  of  the  Holy 
Infant ;  at  Loretto,  medals  of  the  Santa  Casa  ; 


TEE  PILGRIM'S   STAFF  123 

at  Genazzana,  medals  of  Our  Lady  of  Good 
Counsel;  at  Paray-le-Monial,  medals  of  the 
Sacred  Heart ;  at  the  charming  old  pilgrimage 
church  of  Maria  Plain  near  Salzburg,  medals 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin  uncovering  the  Divine 
Child  ;  at  Lourdes,  more  medals  and  rosaries 
than  one  can  imagine  all  Catholic  Christendom 
buying  in  the  next  three  hundred  years. 

Yet  bought  they  are,  and  could  Erasmus 
behold  the  pilgrims  leaving  Lourdes,  he  would 
deem  himself  once  more  on  the  Walsingham 
way.  It  is  well  to  watch  the  French  country 
people,  laden  with  the  heavy  baskets  which 
hold  their  supply  of  food,  grasping  the  inevit- 
able umbrellas,  as  big  and  bulky  as  folded 
tents,  and  burdened  furthermore  with  an  assort- 
ment of  pious  souvenirs  that  require  the  utmost 
care  in  handling.  They  move  slowly  in  little 
groups  from  image  to  image  in  the  lower  church. 
Some  scholar  of  the  party  spells  out  the  name 
of  each  saint,  and  then  all  softly  rub  their 
miscellaneous  treasures  —  beads,  scapulars, 
medals,  benitiers  —  up  and  down  the  statue's 
robe  and  feet.  Some  old,  old,  misty  notion  of 
the  blessedness  of  touch  dwells  confusedly  in 


124  COMPROMISES 

every  mind.  Their  contentment  is  beautiful  to 
behold.  They  alone  know  by  what  sacrifices  and 
privations  these  days  of  pilgrimage  were  made 
possible  ;  but  we  know  how  much  they  have 
gained.  New  sensations ;  the  sudden  opening  of 
the  world's  closed  doors,  revealing  to  them  a 
little  corner  amid  wide  mysterious  spaces  ;  the 
stirring  of  the  heart  in  the  presence  of  sacred 
things ;  one  keen  experience  in  a  monotonously 
bucolic  life  ;  one  deep  breath  of  a  diviner  air  ; 
something  desired,  achieved,  and  ever  to  be  re- 
membered, —  what  generous  mind  doubts  that 
all  this  is  better  than  sensibly  staying  at  home  ? 
No  observer  could  have  stood  at  the  doors  of 
St.  Peter's  in  the  spring  of  1900,  when  the 
pilgrims  of  every  land  thronged  up  the  sunlit 
steps,  without  learning  once  for  all  the  value  of 
emotions.  The  crowd  stared,  jostled,  chattered, 
as  it  swept  along,  and  then,  entering  those  vast, 
harmonious  aisles,  fell  silent,  while  there  came 
into  every  face  a  look  that  could  never  be 
mistaken  nor  forgotten.  It  was  the  leaping  of 
the  human  soul  to  the  ideal.  It  was  an  inar- 
ticulate nunc  dimittis,  as  the  pilgrim  entered 
upon  the  inheritance  of  ages. 


A  QUAKER   DIARY 

De  tous  ces  titres,  celui  que  j'aime  le  mieux  est  celui 
de  Philadelphien,  ami  desfreres.  II  y  a  bien  des  sortes  de 
vanit^,  mais  la  plus  belle  est  celle  qui,  ne  s'arrogeant  aucun 
litre,  rend  presque  tous  les  autres  ridicules.  —  VOLTAIRE. 

IT  is  well  for  us  who  are  interested  in  colo- 
nial days  and  colonial  ways  that  their  leisure 
gave  men  and  women  ample  opportunity  to 
keep  diaries,  and  that  a  modesty  now  quite  un- 
known made  them  willing  to  spend  long  hours 
in  writing  pages  not  destined  for  publication. 
There  is  something  very  charming  about  this 
old-fashioned,  long-discarded  reticence,  this  de- 
liberate withholding  of  trivial  incidents  and 
fleeting  impressions  from  the  wide-mouthed  curi- 
osity of  the  crowd.  Even  when  the  Revolution 
had  awakened  that  restless  spirit  of  change 
which  scorned  the  sobriety  of  the  past,  there 
lingered  still  in  people's  hearts  an  inherited 
instinct  of  reserve.  Men  breakfasted  with 
Washington,  dined  with  John  Adams,  fought 
by  the  side  of  La  Fayette,  and  never  dreamed 


126  COMPROMISES 

of  communicating  these  details  to  the  world. 
Women  danced  at  the  redcoat  balls,  or  curtsied 
and  yawned  at  Mrs.  Washington's  receptions, 
and  then  went  home  and  confided  their  experi- 
ences either  to  their  friends,  in  long,  gossiping 
letters,  or  to  the  secret  pages  of  their  diaries. 
It  was  a  lamentable  waste  of  "  copy,"  but  a 
saving  of  dignity  and  self-respect. 

As  for  the  earlier,  easier  days,  when  the  in- 
fant colonies  waxed  fat  on  beef  and  ale,  literary 
aspirations  had  not  then  begun  to  afflict  the 
hearts  of  men.  It  is  delightful  to  think  how 
well  little  Philadelphia,  like  New  York,  got 
along  without  so  much  as  a  printing  press, 
when  she  had  starved  out  her  only  printer, 
Bradford,  —  a  most  troublesome  and  seditious 
person,  —  and  sent  him  over  to  little  Boston, 
which  even  then  had  more  patience  than  her 
neighbours  with  books.  Yet  all  this  time,  hon- 
est citizens  were  transcribing  in  letters  and 
in  journals  whatever  was  of  daily  interest 
or  importance  to  them ;  and  it  is  by  help  of 
these  letters  and  these  journals  that  we  now 
look  back  upon  that  placid  past,  and  realize 
the  every-day  existence  of  ordinary  people, 


A    QUAKER   DIARY  127 

nearly  two  centuries  ago.  We  know  through 
them,  and  through  them  only,  what  manner  of 
lives  our  forefathers  led  in  Puritan  New  Eng- 
land, in  comfortable  Dutch  New  York,  in  de- 
mure Quaker  Pennsylvania,  before  the  sharp 
individuality  of  each  colony  was  merged  into 
the  common  tide,  and  with  the  birth  of  a  na- 
tion—  "  a  respectable  nation,"  to  use  the  words 
of  Washington,  who  was  averse  to  glittering 
superlatives  —  the  old  order  passed  away  for- 
ever from  the  land. 

"  It  is  to  the  pages  of  Judge  Sewall's  diary," 
writes  Alice  Morse  Earle,  "  that  we  must  turn 
for  any  definite  or  extended  contemporary  pic- 
ture of  colonial  life  in  New  England ;  "  just  as 
we  turn  for  the  corresponding  picture  of  old 
England  to  the  diaries  of  John  Evelyn  and  of 
Mr.  Samuel  Pepys.  Mrs.  Earle  does  not  add, 
though  she  well  might,  that  it  is  better  disci- 
pline to  read  Judge  Sewall's  records  than  those 
of  all  the  other  diarists  in  Christendom ;  for, 
by  contrast  with  the  bleak  cheerlessness  of 
those  godly  days,  our  own  age  seems  flooded 
with  sunshine,  and  warm  with  the  joy  of  life. 
And  not  our  own  age  only.  If  we  pass  from 


128  COMPROMISES 

ice-bound  Massachusetts  to  colonies  less  chilly 
and  austere,  we  step  at  once  into  a  different 
world,  a  tranquil  and  very  comfortable  world ; 
not  intellectual  nor  anxiously  religious,  but 
full  of  eating  and  drinking,  and  the  mildest 
of  mild  amusements,  and  general  prosperity 
and  content.  Even  the  Pennsylvania  Quakers, 
though  not  permitted  to  dally  openly  with 
flaunting  and  conspicuous  pleasures,  with  blue 
ribbons,  coloured  waistcoats,  or  the  shows  of 
itinerant  mummers,  enjoyed  a  fair  share  of 
purely  mundane  delights.  If  Judge  Sewall's 
journal  tells  us  plainly  and  pitilessly  the  story 
of  Puritanism,  what  it  really  meant  in  those 
early  uncompromising  days,  what  virtues  it 
nourished,  what  sadness  it  endured,  the  diary 
of  a  Philadelphia  Friend  gives  us  a  correspond- 
ingly clear  insight  into  that  old-time  Quaker- 
ism, gentle,  silent,  tenacious,  inflexible,  which 
is  now  little  more  than  a  tradition  in  the  land, 
yet  which  has  left  its  impress  forever  upon  the 
city  it  founded  and  sustained. 

Elizabeth  Sandwith,  better  known  as  Eliza- 
beth Drinker,  —  though  even  that  name  has 
an  unfamiliar  sound,  save  to  her  descendants 


A    QUAKER   DIARY  129 

and  to  a  few  students  of  local  history,  —  was 
born  in  Philadelphia  in  1735.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  wealthy  Friends,  and  her  educa- 
tion, liberal  for  those  days,  would  not  be  deemed 
much  amiss  even  in  our  own.  It  included  a 
fair  knowledge  of  French  and  a  very  admir- 
able familiarity  with  English.  She  read  books 
that  were  worth  the  reading,  and  she  wrote 
with  ease,  conciseness,  and  subdued  humour. 
Her  diary,  begun  in  1758,  was  continued  with- 
out interruption  for  forty-nine  years.  It  is  val- 
uable, not  only  as  a  human  document,  and  as 
a  clear,  graphic,  unemotional  narrative  of  the 
most  troubled  and  triumphant  period  in  our 
country's  history,  but  because  it  contains  a 
careful  record  of  events  which  —  of  the  ut- 
most importance  to  the  local  historian  —  may 
be  searched  for  in  vain  elsewhere.  The  entries 
are  for  the  most  part  brief,  and  to  this  brevity, 
no  doubt,  we  owe  the  persevering  character  of 
the  work.  It  is  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the 
young  diarist  usually  sets  about  her  task  that 
threatens  its  premature  collapse.  She  begins 
by  being  unduly  confidential,  and  ends  by  hav- 
ing nothing  to  confide. 


130  COMPROMISES 

Not  so  this  Quaker  girl,  reticent  even  with 
herself ;  avoiding,  even  in  the  secret  pages  of 
her  journal,  all  gossip  about  her  own  soul,  all 
spiritual  outpourings,  all  the  dear  and  inex- 
haustible delights  of  egotism.  She  notes  down, 
indeed,  every  time  she  goes  to  meeting,  and 
also  the  date  on  which  she  begins  to  work 
"  a  large  worsted  Bible  cover,"  —  which  Bible 
cover  is  in  the  possession  of  her  great-great- 
grandchildren to-day;  but  neither  the  meet- 
ings nor  the  worsted  work  betray  her  into  a 
complacent  piety,  and  she  is  just  as  careful  to 
say  when  she  has  been  drinking  tea,  or  spend- 
ing the  afternoon  with  any  of  her  young 
friends.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  tea-drinking  and 
kindred  frivolities  are  evidently  more  to  her 
liking,  though  she  will  not  confess  it,  than 
serious  and  improving  occupations.  Philadel- 
phia, dazzled  by  Franklin's  discoveries,  was 
pleased  to  think  herself  scientific  in  those  days  ; 
and  young  men  and  women  were  in  the  habit 
of  attending  learned  lectures,  —  or  what  were 
then  thought  learned  lectures,  —  and  pretend- 
ing they  understood  and  enjoyed  them,  —  a 
mental  attitude  not  wholly  unfamiliar  to  us 


A   QUAKER  DIARY  131 

now.  So  keen  was  the  thirst  for  knowledge 
that  men  paid  four  shillings  for  the  privilege 
of  looking  at  a  skeleton  and  some  anatomical 
models  in  the  Pennsylvania  Hospital.  Our 
Quaker  Elizabeth,  however,  will  have  none  of 
these  dreary  pastimes.  To  electricity  and  to 
skeletons  she  is  alike  indifferent ;  but  she  pays 
two  shillings  cheerfully  to  see  a  lioness,  exhib- 
ited by  some  enterprising  showman,  and  she 
records  without  a  scruple  that  she  and  her 
family  gave  the  really  exorbitant  sum  of  six 
shillings  and  sixpence  for  a  glimpse  at  a 
strange  creature  which  was  carried  about  in 
a  barrel,  and  which  its  owner  said  was  half 
man  and  half  beast,  but  which  turned  out  to 
be  a  young  baboon,  very  sick  and  sad.  "  I 
felt  sorry  for  the  poor  thing,  and  wished  it 
back  in  its  own  country,"  says  the  gentle- 
hearted  Quakeress,  who  has  always  a  pitying 
word  for  beasts. 

The  fidelity  with  which  this  delightful  jour- 
nal is  kept  enables  us  to  know  what  sober 
diversions  fell  to  the  lot  of  strict  Friends,  to 
whom  the  famous  Philadelphia  Dancing  As- 
semblies and  the  equally  famous  old  South- 


132  COMPROMISES 

wark  Theatre  were  alike  forbidden  joys  ;  who 
never  witnessed  the  glories  of  the  Mischianza, 
nor  the  gay  routs  of  the  redcoat  winter ;  who, 
though  loyal  to  the  crown,  shared  in  none 
of  the  festivities  of  the  king's  birthday ;  who 
were  too  circumspect  even  to  join  the  little 
group  of  Quaker  ladies  for  whom  M.  de  Lu- 
zerne  prepared  a  separate  apartment  at  the 
beautiful  fete  du  Dauphin,  and  who,  wistful 
and  invisible,  watched  through  a  gauze  curtain 
the  brilliant  scene  in  which  they  had  no  share. 
None  of  these  dallyings  with  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil,  no  glimpses  into  the  fast- 
growing  dissipation  of  the  gayest  and  most  ex- 
travagant city  in  the  colonies,  find  a  record  in 
Elizabeth  Drinker's  diary.  Her  utmost  limit 
of  frivolity  is  reached  in  a  sleighing  party  on 
a  winter  afternoon ;  in  tea-drinking  on  winter 
evenings  ;  in  listening  to  a  wonderful  musical 
clock,  which  cost  a  thousand  guineas  in  Europe 
and  played  twenty  tunes ;  and  in  gazing  at  a 
panorama  of  London,  which  most  Philadel- 
phians  considered  almost  as  good  as  visiting 
the  metropolis  itself.  When  she  is  well  ad- 
vanced in  years,  she  is  beguiled  by  her  insa- 


A    QUAKER   DIARY  133 

tiable  curiosity  into  going  to  see  an  elephant, 
which  is  kept  in  a  "  small  ordinary  room,"  in  a 
not  very  reputable  alley.  In  fact,  she  is  a  little 
frightened,  and  more  than  a  little  ashamed, 
at  finding  herself  in  such  a  place,  until  she 
encounters  a  friend,  Abigail  Griffitts,  who  has 
come  to  gratify  her  curiosity  imder  pretence  of 
showing  the  elephant  to  her  grandchildren  ;  and 
the  two  women  are  so  sustained  by  each  other's 
company  that  they  forget  their  confusion,  and 
proceed  to  examine  the  mammoth  together. 
"  It  is  an  innocent,  good-natured,  ugly  Beast," 
comments  Elizabeth  Drinker,  "  which  I  need 
not  undertake  to  describe  ;  only  to  say  it  is 
indeed  a  marvel  to  most  who  see  it,  —  one  of 
the  kind  never  having  been  in  this  part  of  the 
world  before.  I  could  not  help  pitying  the  poor 
creature,  whom  they  keep  in  constant  agitation, 
and  often  give  it  rum  or  brandy  to  drink.  I 
think  they  will  finish  it  before  long."  The  pre- 
sence of  an  elephant  in  a  small  room,  like  one 
of  the  family,  seems  an  uncomfortable  arrange- 
ment, even  if  the  "  innocent  beast "  were  of 
temperate  habits ;  but  an  elephant  in  a  state 
of  unseemly  "  agitation  "  must  have  been  — at 


134  COMPROMISES 

such  close  quarters  —  a  disagreeable  and  dan- 
gerous companion. 

One  pastime  there  is  which  dates  from  the 
days  of  Eden,  which  no  creed  forbids  and  no 
civilization  forswears.  Elizabeth  Sandwith  has 
not  recorded  many  little  events  in  her  diary 
before  Henry  Drinker  looms  upon  the  scene, 
though  it  is  only  by  the  inexpressible  demure- 
ness  of  her  allusions  to  her  lover  that  we  have 
any  insight  into  the  state  of  her  affections. 
Quaker  training  does  not  encourage  the  easy 
unfurling  of  emotions,  and  Elizabeth's  heart, 
like  her  soul,  was  a  guarded  fortress  which  no 
one  was  invited  to  inspect.  There  is  a  good 
deal  of  tea-drinking,  however,  and  sometimes 
an  indiscreet  lingering  after  tea  until  "  unsea- 
sonable hours,"  eleven  o'clock  or  thereabouts. 
Finally,  on  the  28th  of  November,  1760,  ap- 
pears the  following  entry  :  "  Went  to  monthly 
meeting  this  morning,  A.  "Warner  and  Sister 
with  me.  Declared  my  intentions  of  marriage 
with  my  Friend  H.  D.  Sarah  Sansom  and 
Sarah  Morris  accompanied  us  to  ye  Men's  meet- 
ing." Four  weeks  later  this  formidable  ordeal 
is  repeated.  She  announces  in  the  December 


A    QUAKER   DIARY  135 

monthly  meeting  that  she  continues  her  inten- 
tions of  marriage  with  her  friend  H.  D.  In 
January  the  wedding  is  celebrated ;  and  then, 
and  then  only,  H.  D.  expands  into  "  my  dear 
Henry,"  and  assumes  a  regular,  though  never 
a  very  prominent,  place  in  the  diary. 

After  this,  the  entries  grow  longer,  less  per- 
sonal, and  full  of  allusions  to  public  matters. 
We  learn  how  sharply  justice  was  administered 
in  the  Quaker  city ;  for  Benjamin  Ardey,  be- 
ing convicted  of  stealing  goods  out  of  a  shop 
where  he  was  employed,  is  whipped  for  two 
successive  Saturdays,  —  "  once  at  ye  cart's 
tail,  and  once  at  ye  post."  We  learn  all  about 
the  delights  of  travelling  in  those  primitive 
days  ;  for  the  young  wife  accompanies  her  hus- 
band on  several  journeys  he  is  compelled  to 
make  to  the  little  townships  of  the  province, 
and  gives  us  a  lively  account  of  the  roads  and 
inns,  —  of  the  Manatawny  Tavern,  for  example, 
and  the  indignation  of  the  old  Dutch  landlady 
on  being  asked  for  clean  sheets.  Such  a  notion 
as  changing  sheets  for  every  fresh  traveller  has 
never  dawned  upon  her  mind  before,  and,  with 
the  conservative  instincts  of  her  class,  she  takes 


136  COMPROMISES 

very  unkindly  to  the  suggestion.  She  is  will- 
ing to  dampen  and  press  the  bed  linen,  since 
these  fastidious  guests  dislike  to  see  it  rumpled ; 
but  that  is  the  full  extent  of  her  complaisance. 
If  people  want  clean  sheets,  they  had  better 
bring  them  along. 

Most  interesting  of  all,  we  find  in  this  faith- 
ful, accurate,  unemotional  diary  a  very  clear 
and  graphic  picture  of  Philadelphia  on  the  eve 
of  the  Revolution  and  after  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  when  deepening  discontent  and 
the  sharp  strife  of  opposing  factions  had  for- 
ever destroyed  the  old  placid,  prosperous  colo- 
nial life.  Every  one  knows  how  stubborn  was 
the  opposition  offered  by  the  Quakers  to  the 
war ;  how  they  were  hurled  from  their  high 
estate  by  the  impetuosity  of  a  patriotism  which 
would  brook  no  delay  ;  and  how,  with  the  pass- 
ing away  of  the  Assembly,  they  lost  all  vestige 
of  political  power.  Scant  mercy  was  shown 
them  after  their  downfall  by  the  triumphant 
Whigs,  and  scant  justice  has  been  done  them 
since  by  historians  who  find  it  easier  to  be  elo- 
quent than  impartial.  There  appears  to  have 
been  something  peculiarly  maddening  in  the 


A   QUAKER  DIARY  137 

passive  resistance  of  the  Friends,  and  in  their 
absolute  inability  to  share  the  emotions  of  the 
hour.  The  same  quiet  antagonism  which  they 
had  manifested  to  the  Stamp  Act,  to  the  three- 
penny duty  on  tea,  and  to  all  unconstitutional 
measures  on  the  part  of  England,  they  offered 
in  turn  to  the  mandates  of  Congress,  and  to 
the  exactions  of  the  Executive  Council.  They 
would  not  renounce  their  allegiance  to  the 
crown  ;  they  would  not  fight  for  king  or  coun- 
try ;  they  would  not  pay  the  new  state  tax 
levied  for  the  support  of  the  troops ;  they 
would  not  lift  their  hands  when  the  tax  col- 
lector carried  off  their  goods  and  chattels  in  de- 
fault of  payment ;  they  would  not  hide  their 
valuables  from  the  collector's  eyes  ;  they  would 
not  run  away  when  General  Howe's  army  en- 
tered Philadelphia  in  the  autumn  of  1777,  nor 
when  the  American  troops  took  possession  the 
following  June.  They  would  not  do  anything 
at  all,  —  not  even  talk  ;  and  perhaps  silence 
was  their  most  absolutely  irritating  character- 
istic, at  a  time  when  other  men  found  pulpit 
and  platform  insufficient  for  the  loud-voiced 
eloquence  of  strife. 


138  COMPROMISES 

In  reading  Elizabeth  Drinker's  journal,  we 
cannot  but  be  struck  with,  the  absence  of  in- 
vective, and,  for  the  most  part,  of  comment. 
Anxiety  and  irritation  are  alike  powerless  to 
overcome  the  lifelong  habit  of  restraint.  Her 
husband  appears  to  have  been  a  stubborn  and 
consistent  Tory,  though  the  restrictions  of  his 
creed  compelled  him  to  play  an  idle  part,  and 
to  suffer  for  a  lost  cause  without  striking  a 
blow  in  its  behalf.  He  was  one  of  forty  gentle- 
men, nearly  all  Friends,  who  were  banished 
from  Philadelphia  in  the  summer  of  1777  ; 
and  his  wife,  with  two  young  children,  was  left 
unprotected,  to  face  the  discomforts  and  dan- 
gers of  the  tunes.  She  was  more  than  equal  to 
the  task.  There  is  as  little  evidence  of  timidity 
as  of  rancour  in  the  quiet  pages  of  her  diary. 
She  describes  the  excitement  and  confusion 
which  the  news  of  General  Howe's  approach 
awakened  in  Philadelphia,  and  on  the  26th  of 
September  writes :  "  Well !  here  are  ye  English 
in  earnest.  About  two  or  three  thousand  came 
in  through  Second  Street,  without  opposition  or 
interruption,  —  no  plundering  on  ye  one  side 
or  ye  other.  What  a  satisfaction  would  it  be 


A    QUAKER   DIARY  139 

to  our  dear  absent  friends,"  —  of  whom  one 
was  her  absent  husband,  —  "  could  they  but 
be  informed  of  it." 

From  this  time,  all  public  events  are  recorded 
with  admirable  brevity  and  accuracy  (Caesar 
would  have  respected  Elizabeth  Drinker) : 
the  battle  of  Germantown,  the  difficulty  of 
finding  shelter  for  the  wounded  soldiers,  the 
bombardment  and  destruction  of  the  three 
forts  which  guarded  Franklin's  chevaux  de 
frise  and  separated  General  Howe  from  the 
fleet,  the  alarming  scarcity  of  provisions  be- 
fore the  three  forts  fell.  Despite  her  Tory  sym- 
pathies and  her  husband's  banishment,  Eliza- 
beth sends  coffee  and  wine  whey  daily  to  the 
wounded  American  prisoners ;  rightly  thinking 
that  the  English  ran  a  better  chance  of  being 
looked  after  in  the  hospitals  than  did  her  own 
countrymen.  She  suffers  no  molestation  save 
once,  when,  as  she  writes,  "  a  soldier  came  to 
demand  Blankets,  which  I  did  not  in  any  wise 
agree  to.  Notwithstanding  my  refusal,  he  went 
upstairs  and  took  one,  and  with  good  nature 
begged  I  would  excuse  his  borrowing  it,  as  it 
was  by  General  Howe's  orders." 


140  COMPROMISES 

Annoyances  and  alarms  were  common 
enough  in  a  town  overrun  by  redcoats,  who 
were  not  infrequently  drunk.  Elizabeth,  de- 
scending one  night  to  her  kitchen,  found  a 
tipsy  sergeant  making  ardent  and  irresistible 
love  to  her  neat  maidservant,  Ann.  On  being 
told  to  go  away,  the  man  grew  bellicose,  flour- 
ished his  sword,  and  used  the  forcible  language 
of  the  camp.  He  had  reckoned  without  his 
host,  however,  when  he  thought  to  have  mat- 
ters all  to  his  own  liking  under  that  quiet 
Quaker  roof.  A  middle-aged  neighbour,  —  a 
Friend,  —  hearing  the  tumult,  came  swiftly  to 
the  rescue,  collared  the  rascal,  and  wrenched 
the  sword  out  of  his  hand ;  whereupon  Eliza- 
beth, with  delightful  sense  and  caution,  carried 
the  carnal  weapon  into  the  parlour,  and  deliber- 
ately locked  it  up  in  a  drawer.  This  sobered 
the  warrior,  and  brought  him  to  his  senses.  To 
go  back  to  his  barracks  without  his  sword 
would  be  to  court  unpleasant  consequences. 
So  after  trying  what  some  emphasized  pro- 
fanity would  do  to  help  him,  and  finding  it  did 
nothing  at  all,  he  grew  humble,  said  he  had 
only  yielded  up  his  arms"  out  of  pure  good 


A   QUAKER  DIARY  141 

nature,"  and  announced  his  willingness  to  drink 
a  glass  of  wine  with  such  peaceable  and  friendly 
folk.  No  liquor  was  produced  in  response  to 
this  cordial  condescension,  but  he  was  con- 
ducted carefully  to  the  step,  the  sword  returned 
to  him,  and  the  door  shut  in  his  face ;  upon 
which  poor  foolish  Ann,  being  refused  permis- 
sion to  follow,  climbed  the  back  fence  in  pur- 
suit of  her  lover,  and  returned  to  her  duties 
no  more. 

Of  the  brilliant  gayety  which  marked  this 
memorable  winter,  of  the  dinners  and  balls,  of 
the  plays  at  the  old  Southwark  Theatre,  of  the 
reckless  extravagance  and  dissipation  which 
filled  the  lives  of  the  fair  Tory  dames  who 
danced  the  merry  nights  away,  there  is  not  the 
faintest  reflection  in  the  pages  of  this  diary. 
Even  the  Mischianza  —  that  marvellous  combi- 
nation of  ball,  banquet,  and  tournament  —  is 
dismissed  in  a  few  brief  sentences.  "  Ye  scenes 
of  Vanity  and  Folly,"  says  the  home-staying 
Quaker  wife,  though  still  without  any  rancor- 
ous disapprobation  of  the  worldly  pleasures  in 
which  she  has  no  share.  To  withstand  stead- 
fastly the  allurements  of  life,  yet  pass  no  cen- 


142  COMPROMISES 

sure  upon  those  who  yield  to  them,  denotes  a 
gentle  breadth  of  character,  far  removed  from 
the  complacent  self-esteem  of  the  "  unco  guid." 
When  a  young  English  officer,  whom  Elizabeth 
Drinker  is  compelled  to  receive  under  her  roof, 
gives  an  evening  concert  in  his  rooms,  and  the 
quiet  house  rings  for  the  first  time  with  mu- 
sic and  loud  voices,  her  only  comment  on  the 
entertainment  is  that  it  was  "  carried  on  with 
as  much  soberness  and  good  order  as  the  na- 
ture of  the  thing  admitted."  And  when  he  in- 
vites a  dozen  friends  to  dine  with  him,  she 
merely  records  that  "they  made  very  little 
noise,  and  went  away  timeously."  It  is  a  good 
tonic  to  read  any  pages  so  free  from  com- 
plaints and  repining. 

The  diary  bears  witness  to  the  sad  distress  of 
careless  merrymakers  when  the  British  army 
prepared  to  take  the  field,  to  the  departure  of 
many  prominent  Tories  with  Admiral  Howe's 
fleet,  and  to  the  wonderful  speed  and  silence 
with  which  Sir  Henry  Clinton  withdrew  his 
forces  from  Philadelphia.  "  Last  night,"  writes 
Elizabeth  on  the  18th  of  June,  1778,  "  there 
were  nine  thousand  of  ye  British  Troops  left 


A    QUAKER   DIARY  143 

in  Town,  and  eleven  thousand  in  ye  Jerseys. 
This  morning,  when  we  arose,  there  was  not 
one  Red-Coat  to  be  seen  in  Town,  and  ye  En- 
campment in  ye  Jerseys  had  vanished." 

With  the  return  of  Congress  a  new  era  of 
discomfort  began  for  the  persecuted  Friends, 
whose  houses  were  always  liable  to  be  searched, 
whose  doors  were  battered  down,  and  whose 
windows  were  broken  by  the  vivacious  mob  ; 
while  the  repeated  seizures  of  household  effects 
for  unpaid  war  taxes  soon  left  rigid  members 
of  the  society  —  bound  at  any  cost  to  obey  the 
dictates  of  their  uncompromising  consciences 
—  without  a  vestige  of  furniture  in  their  pil- 
laged homes.  "  George  Schlosser  and  a  young 
man  with  him  came  to  inquire  what  stores  we 
have,"  is  a  characteristic  entry  in  the  journal. 
"  Looked  into  ye  middle  room  and  cellar.  Be- 
haved complaisant.  Their  authority,  the  Pop- 
ulace." And  again :  "  We  have  taxes  at  a 
great  rate  almost  daily  coming  upon  us.  Yes- 
terday was  seized  a  walnut  Dining  Table,  five 
walnut  Chairs,  and  a  pair  of  large  End-Irons, 
as  our  part  of  a  tax  for  sending  two  men  out 
in  the  Militia."  This  experience  is  repeated 


144  COMPROMISES 

over  and  over  again,  varied  occasionally  by 
some  livelier  demonstrations  on  the  part  of  the 
"  populace,"  which  had  matters  all  its  own  way 
during  those  wild  years  of  misrule.  When 
word  came  to  Philadelphia  that  Lord  Corn- 
wallis  had  surrendered,  the  mob  promptly  ex- 
pressed its  satisfaction  by  wrecking  the  houses 
of  Friends  and  Tory  sympathizers.  "  We  had 
seventy  panes  of  glass  broken,"  writes  Eliza- 
beth calmly,  "  ye  sash  lights  and  two  panels 
of  the  front  Parlour  broke  in  pieces ;  ye  Door 
cracked  and  violently  burst  open,  when  they 
threw  stones  into  ye  House  for  some  time,  but 
did  not  enter.  Some  fared  better,  some  worse. 
Some  Houses,  after  breaking  ye  door,  they 
entered,  and  destroyed  the  Furniture.  Many 
women  and  children  were  frightened  into  fits, 
and  't  is  a  mercy  no  lives  were  lost." 

When  peace  was  restored  and  the  federal 
government  firmly  established,  these  disorders 
came  to  an  end ;  a  new  security  reigned  in 
place  of  the  old  placid  content;  and  a  new 
prosperity,  more  buoyant  but  less  solid  than 
that  of  colonial  days,  gave  to  Philadelphia,  as 
to  other  towns,  an  air  of  gayety,  and  habits  of 


A    QUAKER  DIARY  145 

increased  extravagance.  We  hear  no  more  of 
the  men  who  went  with  clubs  from  shop  to  shop, 
"  obliging  ye  people  to  lower  their  prices," 
—  a  proceeding  so  manifestly  absurd  that 
"  Tommy  Kedman,  the  Doctor's  apprentice, 
was  put  in  prison  for  laughing  as  ye  Regula- 
tors passed  by."  We  hear  no  more  of  houses 
searched  or  furniture  carted  away.  Elizabeth 
Drinker's  diary  begins  to  deal  with  other  mat- 
ters, and  we  learn  to  our  delight  that  this  se- 
date Quakeress  was  passionately  fond  of  read- 
ing romances ;  —  those  alluring,  long-winded, 
sentimental,  impossible  romances,  dear  to  our 
great-grandmothers'  hearts.  It  is  true  she  does 
not  wholly  approve  of  such  self-indulgence, 
and  has  ever  ready  some  word  of  excuse  for 
her  own  weakness  ;  but  none  the  less  "  The 
Mysteries  of  Udolpho  "  and  its  sister  stories 
thrill  her  with  delicious  emotions  of  pity  and 
alarm.  "  I  have  read  a  foolish  romance  called 
4  The  Haunted  Priory ;  or  the  Fortunes  of  the 
House  of  Rayo,'  "  she  writes  on  one  occasion  ; 
"  but  I  have  also  finished  knitting  a  pair  of 
large  cotton  stockings,  bound  a  petticoat,  and 
made  a  batch  of  gingerbread.  This  I  mention 


146  COMPROMISES 

to  show  that  I  have  not  spent  the  whole  day 
reading."  Again  she  confesses  to  completing 
two  thick  volumes  entitled  "The  Victim  of 
Magical  Illusions  ;  or  the  Mystery  of  the  Revo- 
lution of  P —  L — ,"  which  claimed  to  be  a 
"  magico  -  political  tale,  founded  on  historic 
fact."  "  It  may  seem  strange,"  she  muses, 
"that  I  should  begin  the  year,  reading  ro- 
mances. 'T  is  a  practice  I  by  no  means  highly 
approve,  yet  I  trust  I  have  not  sinned,  as  I 
read  a  little  of  most  things." 

She  does  indeed,  for  we  find  her  after  a 
time  dipping  into  —  of  all  books  in  the  world 
—  Rabelais,  and  retiring  hastily  from  the  ex- 
periment. "  I  expected  something  very  sensi- 
ble and  clever,"  she  says  sadly,  "  but  on  look- 
ing over  the  volumes  I  was  ashamed  I  had 
sent  for  them."  Mary  Wollstonecraft's  "  Vin- 
dication of  the  Rights  of  Women  "  pleases  her 
infinitely  better ;  though  she  is  unwilling  to 
go  so  far  as  the  impetuous  Englishwoman,  in 
whom  reasonableness  was  never  a  predominant 
trait.  Unrestricted  freedom,  that  curbless  wan- 
dering through  doubtful  paths  which  end  in 
social  pitfalls,  offered  no  allurement  to  the 


A    QUAKER  DIARY  147 

Quaker  wife  in  whom  self-restraint  had  become 
second  nature ;  but  her  own  intelligence  and 
her  practical  capacity  for  affairs  made  her 
respect  both  the  attainments  and  the  preroga- 
tives of  her  sex.  In  fact,  she  appears  to  have 
had  exceedingly  clear  and  definite  opinions 
upon  most  matters  which  came  within  her  ken, 
and  she  expresses  them  in  her  diary  without 
diffidence  or  hesitation.  The  idol  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary period  was  Tom  Paine  ;  and  when  we 
had  established  our  own  republic,  the  enthusi- 
asm we  felt  for  republican  France  predisposed 
us  still  to  believe  that  Paine's  turbulent  elo- 
quence embodied  all  wisdom,  all  justice,  and 
all  truth.  In  Philadelphia  the  French  craze 
assumed  more  dangerous  and  absurd  propor- 
tions than  in  any  other  city  of  the  Union. 
Her  once  decorous  Quaker  streets  were  orna- 
mented with  liberty-poles  and  flower-strewn 
altars  to  freedom,  around  which  men  and 
women,  girls  and  boys,  danced  the  carmagnole, 
and  shrieked  wild  nonsense  about  tyrants  and 
the  guillotine.  The  once  quiet  nights  were 
made  hideous  with  echoes  of  "  Ca  ira  "  and  the 
Marseillaise.  Citizens,  once  sober  and  sensi- 


148  COMPROMISES 

ble,  wore  the  bonnet  rouge,  exchanged  frater- 
nal embraces,  recited  mad  odes  at  dinners,  and 
played  tricks  fantastic  enough  to  plunge  the 
whole  hierarchy  of  heaven  into  tears,  —  or 
laughter.  "  If  angels  have  any  fun  in  them," 
says  Horace  Walpole,  "how  we  must  divert 
them !  "  Naturally,  amid  this  popular  excita- 
tion, "  The  Eights  of  Man  "  and  "  The  Age  of 
Keason  "  were  the  best-read  books  of  the  day, 
and  people  talked  about  them  with  that  fierce 
fervour  which  forbade  doubt  or  denial. 

Now  Elizabeth  Drinker  was  never  fervent. 
Hers  was  that  critical  attitude  which  uncon- 
sciously, but  inevitably,  weighs,  measures,  and 
preserves  a  finely  adjusted  mental  balance. 
She  read  "  The  Age  of  Reason,"  and  she  read 
"  The  Rights  of  Man,"  and  then  she  read  Ad- 
dison's  "  Evidences  of  the  Christian  Religion," 
by  way  of  putting  her  mind  in  order,  and  then 
she  sat  down  and  wrote  :  — 

"  Those  who  are  capable  of  much  wicked- 
ness are,  if  their  minds  take  a  right  turn, 
capable  of  much  good ;  and  we  must  allow 
that  Tom  Paine  has  the  knack  of  writing,  or 
putting  his  thoughts  and  words  into  method. 


A   QUAKER   DIARY  149 

Were  he  rightly  inclined,  he  could,  I  doubt 
not,  say  ten  times  as  much  in  favour  of  the 
Christian  religion  as  he  has  advanced  against 
it.  And  if  Lewis  ye  17th  were  set  up  as  King 
of  France,  and  a  sufficient  party  in  his  favour, 
and  Paine  highly  bribed  or  flattered,  he  would 
write  more  for  a  monarchical  government  than 
he  has  ever  written  on  the  other  side." 

Yet  orthodoxy  alone,  unsupported  by  intel- 
lect, had  scant  charm  for  this  devout  Quaker- 
ess. She  wanted,  as  she  expresses  it,  thoughts 
and  words  put  into  method.  Of  a  most  ortho- 
dox and  pious  little  book,  which  enjoyed  the 
approbation  of  her  contemporaries,  she  writes 
as  follows :  "  Read  a  pamphlet  entitled  '  Re- 
wards and  Punishments  ;  or  Satan's  Kingdom 
Aristocratical,'  written  by  John  Cox,  a  Phila- 
delphian,  in  verse.  Not  much  to  the  credit  of 
J.  C.  as  a  poet,  nor  to  the  credit  of  Philadel- 
phia ;  tho'  the  young  man  may  mean  well,  and 
might  perhaps  have  done  better  in  prose." 

"  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  however,  she  confesses 
she  has  read  three  times,  and  finds  that,  "  tho' 
little  thought  of  by  some,"  she  likes  it  better 
and  better  with  each  fresh  reading.  Lavater 


150  COMPROMISES 

she  admires  as  a  deep  and  original  thinker, 
while  mistrusting  that  he  has  "  too  good  a  con- 
ceit "  of  his  own  theories  and  abilities ;  and  the 
"  Morals  "  of  Confucius  she  pronounces  "  a 
sweet  little  piece,"  and  finer  than  most  things 
produced  by  a  more  enlightened  age. 

This  is  not  a  bad  showing  for  those  easy  old 
days,  when  the  higher  education  of  women 
had  not  yet  dawned  as  a  remote  possibility 
upon  any  mind ;  and  when,  in  truth,  the  edu- 
cation of  men  had  fallen  to  a  lower  level  than 
in  earlier  colonial  times.  Philadelphia  was 
sinking  into  a  stagnant  mediocrity,  her  col- 
lege had  been  robbed  of  its  charter,  and  the 
scholarly  ambitions  (they  were  never  more  than 
ambitions)  of  Franklin's  time  were  fading  fast 
away.  Even  Franklin,  while  writing  admira- 
ble prose,  had  failed  to  discover  any  difference 
between  good  and  bad  verse.  His  own  verse  is 
as  cheerfully  and  comprehensively  bad  as  any 
to  be  found,  and  he  always  maintained  that 
men  should  practise  the  art  of  poetry,  only 
that  they  might  improve  their  prose.  This 
purely  utilitarian  view  of  the  poet's  office  was 
not  conducive  to  high  thinking  or  fine  criticism ; 


A   QUAKER  DIARY  151 

and  Elizabeth  Drinker  was  doubtless  in  a  very 
small  minority  when  she  objected  to  "  Satan's 
Kingdom  Aristocratical,"  on  the  score  of  its 
halting  measures. 

The  most  striking  characteristic  of  our 
Quaker  diarist  is  precisely  this  clear,  cold,  un- 
biased judgment,  this  sanity  of  a  well-ordered 
mind.  What  she  lacks,  what  the  journal  lacks 
from  beginning  to  end,  is  some  touch  of  hu- 
man and  ill-repressed  emotion,  some  word  of 
pleasant  folly,  some  weakness  left  undisguised 
and  unrepented.  The  attitude  maintained 
throughout  is  too  judicial,  the  repose  of  heart 
and  soul  too  absolute  to  be  endearing.  Here  is 
a  significant  entry,  illustrating  as  well  as  any 
other  this  nicely  balanced  nature,  which  gave 
to  all  just  what  was  due,  and  nothing  more :  — 

"  There  has  been  a  disorder  lately  among  ye 
cats.  Our  poor  old  Puss,  who  has  been  for 
some  time  past  unwell,  died  this  morning,  in  ye 
13th  year  of  her  age.  Peter  dug  a  grave  two 
feet  deep  on  ye  bank  in  our  garden,  under  ye 
stable  window,  where  E.  S.,  Peter  and  I  saw 
her  decently  interred.  /  had  as  good  a  regard 
for  her  as  was  necessary." 


152  COMPROMISES 

Was  ever  affection  meted  out  like  this? 
Was  there  ever  such  Quaker-like  precision  of 
esteem  ?  For  thirteen  years  that  cat  had  been 
Elizabeth  Drinker's  companion,  and  she  had 
acquired  for  her  just  as  good  a  regard  as  was 
necessary,  and  no  more.  It  was  not  thus  Sir 
Walter  spoke,  when  Hinse  of  Hinsdale  lay  dead 
beneath  the  windows  of  Abbotsford,  slain  by 
the  great  staghound,  Nimrod.  It  was  not  thus 
that  M.  Gautier  lamented  the  consumptive 
Pierrot.  It  is  not  thus  that  the  heart  mourns, 
when  a  little  figure,  friendly  and  familiar,  sits 
no  longer  by  our  desolate  hearth. 


FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS 

Quand  on  est  coquette,  il  faut  etre  sage ; 

L'oiseau  de  passage 

Qui  vole  a  plein  coeur 
Ne  dort  pas  en  1'air  comme  une  hirondelle, 

Et  peut,  d'un  coup  d'aile, 

Briser  une  fleur. 

—  ALFRED  DE  MUSSET. 

THE  literature  of  a  nation  is  rooted  in  na- 
tional characteristics.  Foreign  influences  may 
dominate  it  for  a  time  ;  but  that  which  is  born 
of  the  soil  is  imperishable,  and  must,  by  virtue 
of  tenacity,  conquer  in  the  end.  England, 
after  the  Restoration,  tried  very  hard  to  be 
French,  and  the  "  happy  and  unreflecting  wan- 
tonness "  of  her  earlier  song  was  chilled  into 
sobriety  by  the  measured  cadences  of  Gallic 
verse ;  yet  the  painful  and  perverse  effort  to 
adjust  herself  to  strange  conditions  left  her 
more  triumphantly  English  than  before.  We 
are  tethered  to  our  kind,  and  the  wisest  of  all 
wise  limitations  is  that  which  holds  us  well 


154  COMPROMISES 

within  the  sphere  of  natural  and  harmonious 
development. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  nationality  betrays 
itself  less  in  lyrics,  and,  above  all,  less  in  love 
lyrics,  than  in  any  other  form  of  literature. 
Love  is  a  malady,  the  common  symptoms  of 
which  are  the  same  in  all  patients ;  and  though 
love-songs  —  like  battle-songs  and  drinking- 
songs  —  are  seldom  legitimate  offsprings  of  ex- 
perience, they  are  efforts  to  express  in  words 
that  sweet  and  transient  pain.  "  Les  ames 
bien  nees  "  —  without  regard  to  birthplace  — 
sing  clearly  of  their  passion,  and  seek  their 
"petit  coin  de  bonheur"  under  Southern  and 
Northern  skies.  The  Latin  races  have,  indeed, 
depths  of  reserve  underlying  their  apparent 
frankness,  and  the  Saxons  have  a  genius  for 
self-revelation  underlying  their  apparent  reti- 
cence ;  but  these  traits  count  for  little  in  the 
refined  duplicity  of  the  love-song. 

Garde  bien  ta  belle  folie  ! 

has  been  its  burden  ever  since   it   was   first 
chanted  by  minstrel  lips. 

M.  Brunetiere  frankly  admits  the  inferiority 


FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS  155 

of  the  French  lyric,  an  inferiority  which  he  at- 
tributes to  the  predominance  of  social  charac- 
teristics in  the  literature,  as  in  the  life  of 
France.  When  poetry  is  compelled  to  fulfil  a 
social  function,  to  express  social  conditions  and 
social  truths,  to  emphasize  fundamental  princi- 
ples and  balance  contrasted  forces,  the  founts  of 
lyrical  inspiration  are  early  dried.  Individual- 
ism is  their  source,  —  the  sharp,  clear  striking 
of  the  personal  note  ;  and  the  English,  says 
M.  Brunetiere,  excel  in  this  regard.  "  To  Lu- 
casta.  Going  to  the  Warres,"  has  no  perfect 
counterpart  in  the  love-songs  of  other  lands. 

Even  the  eager  desire  of  the  Frenchman  to 
be  always  intelligible  ("  That  which  is  not 
lucid  is  not  French  ")  militates  against  the  per- 
fection of  the  lyric.  So  too  does  his  exquisite 
and  inborn  sense  of  proportion.  "Measure," 
says  Mr.  Brownell,  "  is  a  French  passion  ;  "  but 
it  is  a  passion  that  refuses  to  lend  itself  to  rap- 
turous sentiment. 

Et  veut  que  Ton  soit  sage  avec  sobrtet^ 

is  hardly  a  maxim  to  which  the  genius  of  the 
love-song  gives  willing  ear.  Rather  is  she  the 


156  COMPROMISES 

La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci,  or  the  Elfin  Lady 
who  rode  through  the  forests  of  ancient  France. 

My  sire  is  the  nightingale, 
That  sings,  making  his  wail, 

In  the  wild  wood,  clear ; 
The  mermaid  is  mother  to  me, 
That  sings  in  the  salt  sea, 

In  the  ocean  mere. 

"What,"  asks  Mr.  BrowneU  hopelessly, 
"  has  become  of  this  Celtic  strain  in  the  French 
nature  ?  "  —  a  strain  which  found  vent  in  the 
"poesie  courtoise"  playful,  amorous,  laden 
with  delicate  subtleties  and  fond  conceits.  This 
poesie  —  once  the  delight  of  Christendom  — 
echoes  still  in  Petrarch's  sonnets  and  in  Shake- 
speare's madrigals  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  link  its 
sweet  extravagances  with  the  chiselled  verse  of 
later  days,  and  critics  forget  the  past  in  their 
careful  contemplation  of  the  present.  "  French 
poetry,"  says  Mr.  Zangwill,  "  has  always  leant 
to  the  frigid,  the  academic,  the  rhetorical,  — 
in  a  word,  to  the  prosaic.  The  spirit  of  Boileau 
has  ruled  it  from  his  cold  marble  urn." 

But  long  before  Boileau  lay  in  his  urn  —  or 
in  his  cradle  —  the  poets  of  France,  like  the 
poets  of  Albion,  sang  with  facile  grace  of  love, 


FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS  157 

and  dalliance,  and  the  glory  of  youth  and  spring. 
The  fact  that  Boileau  ignored  and  despised 
their  song,  and  taught  his  obedient  followers  to 
ignore  and  despise  it  also,  cannot  silence  those 
early  notes.  When  he  descended  frigidly  to 
his  grave,  Euterpe  tucked  up  her  loosened  hair, 
and  sandalled  her  bare  white  feet,  and  girdled 
her  disordered  robes  into  decent  folds.  Per- 
haps it  was  high  time  for  these  reforms.  No- 
thing is  less  seductive  in  middle  age  than  the 
careless  gayety  of  youth.  But  once  France 
was  young,  and  Euterpe  a  slip  of  a  girl,  and 
no  grim  shadow  of  that  classic  urn  rested  on 
the  golden  days  when  Aucassin — model  of  defi- 
ant and  conquering  lovers  —  followed  Nicolette 
into  the  deep,  mysterious  woods. 

Jeunesse  sur  moy  a  puissance, 
Mais  Vieillesse  fait  son  effort 
De  m'avoir  en  sa  gouvernance, 

sang  Charles  d' Orleans,  embodying  in  three 
lines  the  whole  history  of  man  and  song.  Youth 
was  lusty  and  folly  riotous  when  Konsard's  mis- 
tress woke  in  the  morning,  and  found  Apollo 
waiting  patiently  to  fill  his  quiver  with  arrows 
from  her  eyes;  or  when  Jacques  Tahureau 


158  COMPROMISES 

watched  the  stars  of  heaven  grow  dim  before 
his  lady's  brightness ;  or  when  Vauquelin  de  la 
Fresnaye  saw  Philis  sleeping  on  a  bed  of  lilies, 
regardless  of  discomfort,  and  surrounded  by  in- 
fant Loves. 

J'admirois  toutes  ces  beautez 
figalles  a  mes  loyautez, 
Quand  1'esprit  me  dist  en  1'oreille  : 
Fol,  que  fais-tu  ?   Le  temps  perdu 
Souvent  est  cherement  vendu  ; 
S'on  le  recouvre,  c'est  merveille. 

Alors,  je  m'abbaissai  tout  bas, 
Sans  bruit  je  marcbai  pas  a  pas, 
Et  baisai  ses  levres  pourprines  : 
Savourant  un  tel  Men,  je  dis 
Que  tel  est  dans  le  Paradis 
Le  plaisir  des  a~mes  divines. 

With  just  such  sweet  absurdities,  such  par- 
donable insincerities,  the  poets  of  Elizabeth's 
England  fill  their  amorous  verse.  George  Gas- 
coigne  "  swims  in  heaven  "  if  his  mistress  smiles 
upon  him ;  John  Lyly  unhesitatingly  asserts 
that  Daphne's  voice  "  tunes  all  the  spheres ; " 
and  Lodge  exhausts  the  resources  of  the  vege- 
table and  mineral  kingdoms  in  searching  for 
comparisons  by  which  to  set  forth  the  beauties 


FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS  159 

of  Kosalind.  The  philosophy  of  love  is  alike  on 
both  sides  of  the  Channel,  and  expressed  in 
much  the  same  terms  of  soft  insistence.  Carpe 
diem  is,  and  has  always  been,  the  lover's  maxim ; 
and  the  irresistible  eloquence  of  the  lyric  re- 
solves itself  finally  into  these  two  words  of  warn- 
ing, whether  urged  by  Celt  or  Saxon.  Herrick 
is  well  aware  of  their  supreme  significance  when 
he  sings :  — 

Gather  ye  rose-buds  while  ye  may, 

Old  Time  is  still  a-flying  : 
And  this  same  flower  that  smiles  to-day, 

To-morrow  will  be  dying. 

Then  be  not  coy,  but  use  your  time, 

And  while  ye  may,  go  marry  ; 
For  having  lost  but  once  your  prime, 

You  may  forever  tarry. 

Ronsard,  pleading  with  his  mistress,  strikes 
the  same  relentless  note :  — 

Done,  si  vous  me  croyez,  Mignonne, 
Tandis  que  vostre  age  fleuronne 
En  sa  plus  vert  nouveaute", 
Cueillez,  cueillez  vostre  jeunesse  ; 
Comme  a  cette  fleur,  la  vieillesse 
Fera  ternir  vostre  beaute*. 

May-day  comes   alike  in   England  and    in 
France.    Herrick  and  Jean  Passerat,  poets  of 


160  COMPROMISES 

Devonshire  and  of  Champagne,  are  equally  de- 
termined that  two  fair  sluggards,  who  love  their 
pillows  better  than  the  dewy  grass,  shall  rise 
from  bed,  and  share  with  them  the  sparkling 
rapture  of  the  early  dawn.  Herrick's  verse, 
laden  with  the  freshness  of  the  Spring,  rings 
imperatively  in  Corinna's  sleepy  ears  :  — 

Get  up,  get  up,  for  shame  !    The  blooming  Morn 
Upon  her  wings  presents  the  god  unshorn. 
See  how  Aurora  throws  her  fair 
Fresh-quilted  colours  through  the  air. 
Get  up,  sweet  Slug-a-bed,  and  see 
The  dew  bespangling  herb  and  tree. 

And  then  —  across  the  gayety  of  the  song 
—  the  deepening  note  of  persuasion  strikes  a 
familiar  chord :  — 

Come,  let  us  go,  while  we  are  in  our  prime ; 
And  take  the  harmless  folly  of  the  time  I 
We  shall  grow  old  apace,  and  die 
Before  we  know  our  liberty. 

Passerat  is  no  less  insistent.  The  suitors  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  seem 
to  have  dedicated  the  chill  hours  of  early 
morning  to  their  courtship.  Nor  was  the  cus- 
tom purely  pastoral  and  poetic.  When  Love- 
lace makes  his  appointments  with  Clarissa  Har- 


FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS  161 

lowe  at  five  A.  M.,  the  modern  reader — if 
Richardson  has  a  modern  reader  —  is  wont  to 
think  the  hour  an  unpropitious  one ;  but  to 
Herrick  and  to  the  Pleiade  it  would  have 
seemed  rational  enough. 

Laissons  le  lit  et  le  sommeil 

Ceste  jour  ne'e : 
Pour  nous,  1'Aurore  au  front  vermeil 

Est  desja  ne'e 

sings  the  French  poet  beneath  his  lady's  win- 
dow ;  adding,  to  overcome  her  coyness  —  or  her 
sleepiness  —  the  old  dominant  argument :  — 

Ce  vieillard,  contraire  aus  amans, 

Des  aisles  porte, 
Et  en  f uyant,  nos  meilleurs  ans 

Bien  Icing  emporte. 
Quand  ride*e  un  jour  tu  seras, 
Me*lancholique,  tu  diras : 

J'estoy  peu  sage, 
Qui  n'usoy  point  de  la  beaute* 
Que  si  tost  le  temps  a  oste" 

De  mon  visage. 

No  less  striking  is  the  similarity  between 
the  reproachful  couplets  in  which  the  singers 
of  England  and  of  France  delight  in  denoun- 
cing their  unfaithful  fair  ones,  or  in  confessing 
with  harmonious  sighs  the  transient  nature  of 


162  COMPROMISES 

their  own  emotions.  Inconstancy  is  the  breath 
of  love's  nostrils,  and  the  inspiration  of  love's 
songs,  which  enchant  us  because  they  express 
an  exquisite  sentiment  in  its  brief  moment  of 
ascendency.  The  tell-tale  past,  the  dubious  fu- 
ture, are  alike  discreetly  ignored.  Love  in  the 
drama  and  in  the  romance  plays  rather  a  heavy 
part.  It  is  too  obtrusively  omniscient.  It  is 
far  too  self-assertive.  Yet  the  average  tax- 
payer, as  has  been  well  remarked,  is  no  more 
capable  of  a  grand  passion  than  of  a  grand 
opera.  The  utmost  he  can  achieve  is  some  fair, 
fleeting  hour,  and  with  the  imperative  glad- 
ness of  such  an  hour  the  love-song  thrills  sym- 
pathetically. It  is  not  its  business  to 

recapture 
That  first  fine  careless  rapture. 

It  does  not  essay  the  impossible. 

Now  the  old  and  nameless  French  poet  who 
wrote  — 

Femme,  plaisir  de  demye  heure, 
Et  ennuy  qui  sans  fins  demeure, 

was  perhaps  too  ungraciously  candid.  Such 
things,  when  said  at  all,  should  be  said  pret- 
tily. 


FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS  163 

Sigh  no  more,  ladies,  sigh  no  more,  — 

Men  were  deceivers  ever ; 
One  foot  in  sea,  and  one  on  shore, 

To  one  thing  constant  never. 

Gay  voices  came  bubbling  with  laughter 
from  the  happy  days  that  are  dead.  Sir  John 
Suckling,  whose  admirable  advice  to  an  over- 
faithful  young  suitor  has  been  the  most  in- 
vigorating of  tonics  to  suitors  ever  since,  vaunts 
with  pardonable  pride  his  own  singleness  of 
heart : — 

Out  upon  it !   I  have  loved 

Three  whole  days  together, 
And  am  like  to  love  three  more, 

If  it  prove  fair  weather. 

Time  shall  moult  away  his  wings 

Ere  he  shall  discover 
In  the  whole  wide  world  again 

Such  a  constant  lover. 

Sir  John  Sedley  epitomizes  the  situation  in 
his  praises  of  that  jade,  Phillis,  whose  smiles 
win  easy  pardon  for  her  perfidy :  — 

She  deceiving, 
I  believing,  — 
What  need  lovers  wish  for  more  ?• 

And  Lovelace,  reversing   the   medal,   pleads 


164  COMPROMISES 

musically — and  not  in  vain  —  for  the  same 
gracious  indulgence :  — 

Why  shoulclst  thou  sweare  I  am  forsworn, 

Since  thine  I  vowed  to  be  ? 
Lady  it  is  already  Morn, 
And  't  was  last  night  I  swore  to  thee 

That  fond  impossibility. 

Mr.  Lang  is  of  the  opinion  that  no  Gallic 
verse  has  equalled  in  audacity  this  confession 
of  limitations,  this  "  Apologia  pro  Vita  Sua ;  " 
and  perhaps  its  light-heartedness  is  well  out  of 
general  reach.  But  the  French  lover,  like  the 
English,  was  made  of  threats  and  promises 
alike  fruitless  of  fulfilment,  and  Phillis  had 
many  a  fair  foreign  sister,  no  whit  more 
worthy  of  regard.  Only,  amid  the  laughter 
and  raillery  of  a  Latin  people,  there  rings  ever 
an  undertone  of  regret,  —  not  passionate  and 
heart-breaking,  as  in  Drayton's  bitter  cry,  — 

Since  there  's  no  help,  come  let  us  kiss  and  part, 

but  vague  and  subtle,  linking  itself  tenderly  to 
some  long-ignored  and  half -forgotten  sentiment, 
buried  deep  in  the  reader's  heart. 

Mais  ou  sont  les  neiges  d'antan  ? 


FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS  165 

A  little  sob  breaks  the  smooth  sweetness  of 
Belleau's  verse,  and  Ronsard's  beautiful  lines 
to  his  careless  young  mistress  are  heavy  with 
the  burden  of  sighs  :  — 

Quand  vous  serez  bien  vieille,  au  soir,  a  la  chandelle, 
Assise  aupres  du  feu,  devisant  et  filant, 
Direz,  chantant  mes  vers,  en  voua  esmerveillant : 
*  Ronsard  me  ce'le'broit  du  temps  que  j'estois  belle.' 

The  note  deepens  as  we  pass  into  the  more 
conscious  art  of  later  years,  but  it  is  always 
French  in  its  grace  and  moderation.  How  en- 
durable is  the  regret  with  which  de  Musset 
sings  of  Juana,  who  loved  him  for  a  whole  year ; 
how  musical  his  farewell  to  Suzon,  whose 
briefer  passion  lasted  eight  summer  days :  — 

Que  notre  amour,  si  tu  m'oublies, 
Suzon,  dure  encore  un  moment ; 
Comme  un  bouquet  de  fleurs  palies ; 
Cache-le  dans  ton  sein  charmant ! 
Adieu  !  le  bonheur  reste  au  gite ; 
Le  souvenir  part  avec  moi : 
Je  1'emporterai,  ma  petite, 

Bien  loin,  bien  vite, 

Toujours  a  toi. 

In  Murger's  familiar  verses,  so  pretty  and 
gay  and  heartsick,  in  the  finer  art  of  Gautier, 


166  COMPROMISES 

in  the  cloudy  lyrics  of  Verlaine,  we  catch 
again  and  again  this  murmur  of  poignant  but 
subdued  regret,  this  sigh  for  the  light  love  that 
has  so  swiftly  fled.  The  delicacy  of  the  senti- 
ment is  unmatched  in  English  song.  The 
Saxon  can  be  profoundly  sad,  and  he  can  —  or 
at  least  he  could  —  be  ringingly  and  recklessly 
gay ;  but  the  mood  which  is  neither  sad  nor 
gay,  which  is  fed  by  refined  emotions,  and 
tranquillized  by  time's  subduing  touch,  has 
been  expressed  oftener  and  better  in  France. 
Four  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  Francois  Vil- 
lon touched  this  exquisite  chord  in  his  "  Bal- 
lade des  Dames  du  Temps  Jadis,"  and  it  has 
vibrated  gently  ever  since.  We  hear  it  echo- 
ing with  melancholy  grace  in  these  simple  lines 
of  Gerard  de  Nerval :  — 

Oh  sont  les  amoureuses  ? 

Elles  sont  au  tombeau  ! 
Mies  sont  plus  heureuses, 

Dans  un  se*jour  plus  beau. 

Nerval,  like  Villon,  had  drunk  deep  of  the 
bitterness  of  life,  but  he  never  permitted  its 
dregs  to  pollute  the  clearness  of  his  song :  — 

Et  vent  que  1'on  soit  triste  avec  sobrie'te'. 


FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS  167 

In  the  opinion  of  many  critics,  the  lyric  was 
not  silenced,  only  chilled,  by  the  development 
of  the  classical  spirit  in  France,  and  the  corre- 
sponding conversion  of  England.  Its  flute  notes 
were  heard  now  and  then  amid  the  decorous 
couplets  that  delighted  well-bred  ears.  Waller 
undertook  the  reformation  of  English  verse,  and 
accomplished  it  to  his  own  and  his  readers'  radi- 
ant satisfaction ;  yet  Waller's  seven-year  suit 
of  Lady  Dorothy  Sidney  is  the  perfection  of 
that  poetic  love-making  which  does  not  lead, 
and  is  not  expected  to  lead,  to  anything  definite 
and  tangible.  Never  were  more  charming  trib- 
utes laid  at  the  feet  of  indifferent  beauty ; 
never  was  indifference  received  with  less  con- 
cern. Sacharissa  listened  and  smiled.  The 
world — the  august  little  world  of  rank  and 
distinction  —  listened  and  smiled  with  her, 
knowing  the  poems  were  written  as  much  for 
its  edification  as  for  hers ;  and  Waller,  well 
pleased  with  the  audience,  nursed  his  passion 
tenderly  until  it  flowered  into  another  delicate 
blossom  of  verse.  The  situation  was  full  of  en- 
joyment while  it  lasted ;  and  when  the  seven 
years  were  over,  Lady  Dorothy  married  Henry, 


168  COMPROMISES 

Lord  Spencer,  who  never  wrote  any  poetry 
at  all ;  while  her  lover  said  his  last  good-bye  in 
the  most  sparkling  and  heart-whole  letter  ever 
penned  by  inconstant  man.  What  would  the 
author  of  "The  Girdle,"  and  "Go,  Lovely  Rose," 
have  thought  of  Browning's  uneasy  rapture  ? 

O  lyric  love,  half  angel  and  half  bird, 
And  all  a  wonder  and  a  wild  desire. 

He  would  probably  have  pointed  out  the  exag- 
geration of  the  sentiment,  and  the  correspond- 
ing looseness  of  the  lines.  He  would  certainly 
have  agreed  with  the  verdict  of  M.  Sevelinges, 
had  that  acute  critic  uttered  it  in  his  day.  "  It 
is  well,"  says  M.  Sevelinges,  "  that  passionate 
love  is  rare.  Its  principal  effect  is  to  detach 
men  from  all  their  surroundings,  to  isolate  them, 
to  render  them  independent  of  the  relations 
which  they  have  not  formed  for  themselves  ; 
and  a  civilized  society  composed  of  lovers  would 
return  infallibly  to  misery  and  barbarism." 

Here  is  the  French  point  of  view,  expressed 
with  that  lucidity  which  the  nation  so  highly 
esteems.  Who  shall  gainsay  its  correctness? 
But  the  Saxon,  like  the  Teuton,  is  sentimental 
to  his  heart's  core,  and  finds  some  illusions 


FRENCH  LOVE-SONGS  169 

better  worth  cherishing  than  truth.  It  was  an 
Englishman,  and  one  to  whom  the  epithet 
"  cynical "  has  been  applied  oftenest,  and  with 
least  accuracy,  who  wrote,  — 

When  he  was  young  as  you  are  young, 
When  he  was  young,  and  lutes  were  strung, 
And  love-lamps  in  the  casement  hung. 


THE  SPINSTER 

The  most  ordinarie  cause  of  a  single  life  is  liberty, 
cially  in  certain  self -pleasing  and  humorous  minds,  which 
are  so  sensible  of  every  restriction,  as  they  wil  goe  neere  to 
thinke  their  girdles  and  garters  to  be  bonds  and  shakles. — 
BACON. 

IN  the  Zend-Avesta,  as  translated  by  Anquetil- 
Duperron,  there  is  a  discouraging  sentence 
passed  upon  voluntary  spinsterhood :  "The 
damsel  who,  having  reached  the  age  of  eighteen, 
shall  refuse  to  marry,  must  remain  in  Hell  until 
the  earth  is  shattered." 

This  assurance  is  interesting,  less  because  of 
its  provision  for  the  spinster's  future  than  be- 
cause it  takes  into  consideration  the  possibility 
of  her  refusing  to  marry ;  —  a  possibility  which 
slipped  out  of  men's  minds  from  the  time  of 
Zoroaster  until  our  present  day.  A  vast  deal 
has  been  written  about  marriage  in  the  interval ; 
but  it  all  bears  the  imprint  of  the  masculine 
intellect,  reasoning  from  the  masculine  point  of 
view,  for  the  benefit  of  masculinity,  and  ignor- 


THE   SPINSTER  171 

ing  in  the  most  natural  manner  the  woman's 
side  of  life.  The  trend  of  argument  is  mainly 
in  one  direction.  While  a  few  cynics  gibe  at 
love  and  conjugal  felicity,  the  mass  of  poets 
and  philosophers  unite  in  extolling  wedlock. 
Some  praise  its  pleasures,  others  its  duties,  and 
others  again  merely  point  out  with  Euripides 
that,  as  children  cannot  be  bought  with  gold 
or  silver,  there  is  no  way  of  acquiring  these 
coveted  possessions  save  by  the  help  of  women. 
Now  and  then  a  rare  word  of  sympathy  is  flung 
to  the  wife,  as  in  those  touching  lines  of  Soph- 
ocles upon  the  young  girls  sold  in  their  "  glee- 
ful maidenhood  "  to  sad  or  shameful  marriage- 
beds.  But  the  important  thing  to  be  achieved  is 
the  welfare  and  happiness  of  men.  The  welfare 
and  happiness  of  women  are  supposed  —  not 
without  reason  —  to  follow  as  a  necessary 
sequence ;  but  this  is  a  point  which  excites 
no  very  deep  concern. 

Catholic  Christendom  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  long  afterwards,  offered  one  practi- 
cal solution  to  the  problem  of  unmated  and  un- 
protected womanhood, —  the  convent.  The  girl 
robbed  of  all  hope  of  marriage  by  bitter  stress 


172  COMPROMISES 

of  war  or  poverty,  the  girl  who  feared  too  deeply 
the  turmoil  and  violence  of  the  world,  found 
shelter  in  the  convent.  Within  its  walls  she 
was  reasonably  safe,  and  her  vows  lent  dignity 
to  her  maidenhood.  Bride  of  the  Church,  she 
did  not  rank  as  a  spinster,  and  her  position  had 
the  advantage  of  being  accurately  defined ;  she 
was  part  of  a  recognized  social  and  ecclesias- 
tical system.  No  one  feels  this  more  solidly 
than  does  a  nun  to-day,  and  no  one  looks  with 
more  contempt  upon  unmarried  women  in  the 
world.  In  her  eyes  there  are  but  two  voca- 
tions,—  wifehood  and  consecrated  virginity. 
She  perceives  that  the  wife  and  the  religious 
are  transmitters  of  the  world's  traditions  ;  while 
the  spinster  is  an  anomaly,  with  no  inherited 
background  to  give  repute  and  distinction  to 
her  role. 

This  point  of  view  is  the  basis  of  much  crit- 
icism, and  has  afforded  scope  for  the  ridicule 
of  the  satirist,  and  for  the  outpourings  of  the 
sentimentalist.  A  great  many  brutal  jests 
have  been  flung  at  the  old  maid,  and  floods  of 
sickly  sentiment  have  been  wasted  on  her  be- 
half. She  has  been  laughed  at  frankly  as  one 


THE    SPINSTER  173 

rejected  by  men,  and  she  has  been  wept  over  as 
a  wasted  force,  withering  patiently  under  the 
blight  of  this  rejection.  "  Envy,  hatred,  malice, 
and  all  uncharitableness  "  have  been  ascribed 
to  her  on  one  side,  and  a  host  of  low-spirited 
and  treacly  virtues,  on  the  other.  The  spinster 
of  comedy  is  a  familiar  figure.  A  perfectly 
simple  and  ingenuous  example  is  the  maiden  aunt 
in  "  Pickwick,"  Miss  Eachel  Wardle,  whom 
Mr.  Tupman  loves,  and  with  whom  Mr.  Jingle 
elopes.  She  is  spiteful  and  foolish,  envious  of 
youth  and  easy  to  dupe.  She  is  utterly  ridicu- 
lous, and  a  fair  mark  for  laughter.  She  is 
pinched,  and  withered,  and  hopelessly  removed 
from  all  charm  of  womanhood  ;  and  —  it  may 
be  mentioned  parenthetically  —  she  is  fifty 
years  old.  We  have  her  brother's  word  for  it. 
There  is  nothing  in  this  straightforward 
caricature  that  could,  or  that  should,  wound 
anybody's  sensibilities.  The  fun  is  of  a  robust 
order ;  the  ridicule  has  no  subtlety  and  no  sting. 
But  the  old  maid  of  the  sentimentalists,  a  crea- 
ture stricken  at  heart,  though  maddeningly 
serene  and  impossibly  unselfish,  is  every  bit  as 
remote  from  reality,  and  far  less  cheerful  to 


174  COMPROMISES 

contemplate.  What  can  be  more  offensive  than 
the  tearful  plea  for  consideration  put  forward 
by  her  apologists,  who,  after  all,  tolerate  her 
only  because,  having  no  career  of  her  own,  she 
is  expected  to  efface  herself  in  the  interests  of 
other  people.  "  The  peculiar  womanly  virtues," 
says  a  recent  writer  upon  this  fruitful  theme, 
"  the  power  of  self-sacrifice,  warm  sympathies, 
compassion,  patient  endurance,  represent  an 
untold  amount  of  suffering  on  the  part  of  the 
weaker  sex  in  past  ages.  It  is  to  the  world's 
advantage  that  the  fruit  of  such  suffering  be 
not  lost." 

Here  is  a  sparkling  view  of  life;  here  is 
a  joyous  standpoint  of  observation.  There  is 
generosity  enough  in  the  world  to  win  for  the 
dejected,  the  wistful,  the  pathetic  woman  a 
fair  share  of  commiseration;  provided  always 
that  she  does  not  oppose  her  own  interests  to 
the  interests  of  those  around  her.  But  what 
if  she  honestly  prefers  her  own  interests,  —  a 
not  uncommon  attitude  of  mind?  What  if 
patient  endurance  be  the  very  last  virtue  to 
which  she  can  lay  claim  ?  What  if  she  is  not 
in  the  least  wistful,  and  never  casts  longing 


THE   SPINSTER  175 

looks  at  her  sister-in-law's  babies,  nor  strains 
them  passionately  to  her  heart,  nor  deems  it  a 
privilege  to  nurse  her  nephews  through  whoop- 
ing-cough and  measles,  nor  offers  herself  in 
any  fashion  as  a  holocaust  upon  other  people's 
domestic  altars?  What  if,  holding  her  life  in 
her  two  hands,  and  knowing  it  to  be  her  only 
real  possession,  she  disposes  of  it  in  the  way 
she  feels  will  give  her  most  content,  swimming 
smoothly  in  the  stream  of  her  own  nature,  and 
clearly  aware  that  happiness  lies  in  the  devel- 
opment of  her  individual  tastes  and  acquire- 
ments ?  Such  a  woman  may,  as  Mr.  Brownell 
says,  exhibit  transparently  "her  native  and  ele- 
mental inconsistencies  ;  "  but  she  calls  for  no 
commiseration,  and  perhaps  adds  a  trifle  to  the 
harmonious  gayety  of  earth. 

That  she  should  be  censured  for  laying  claim 
to  what  is  truly  hers  seems  unkind  and  irra- 
tional, —  a  tyranny  of  opinion.  Marriage  is  a 
delightful  thing ;  but  it  is  not,  and  never  can 
be,  a  duty ;  nor  is  it  as  a  duty  that  men  and 
women  have  hitherto  zealously  practised  it. 
The  outcry  against  celibacy  as  a  "  great  social 
disease  "  is  louder  than  the  situation  warrants. 


176  COMPROMISES 

It  is  the  echo  of  an  older  protest  against  the 
deferring  of  the  inevitable  wedding-day;  against 
the  perverse  "  boggling  at  every  object,"  which 
Burton  found  so  exasperating  a  trait  in  youth, 
and  which  La  Bruyere  calmly  and  conclusively 
condemns.  "  There  is,"  says  the  French  mor- 
alist, "a  time  when  even  the  richest  women 
ought  to  marry.  They  cannot  allow  their 
youthful  chances  to  escape  them,  without  the 
risk  of  a  long  repentance.  The  importance 
of  their  reputed  wealth  seems  to  diminish  with 
their  beauty.  A  young  woman,  on  the  contrary, 
has  everything  in  her  favour ;  and  if,  added  to 
youth,  she  possesses  other  advantages,  she  is 
so  much  the  more  desirable." 

This  is  the  simplest  possible  exposition  of 
the  masculine  point  of  view.  It  is  plain  that 
nothing  is  farther  from  La  Bruyere's  mind 
than  the  possibility  of  a  lifelong  spinsterhood 
for  even  the  most  procrastinating  heiress.  He 
merely  points  out  that  it  would  be  more  rea- 
sonable in  her  to  permit  a  husband  to  enjoy 
her  youth  and  her  wealth  simultaneously.  The 
modern  moralist  argues  with  less  suavity  that 
the  rich  woman  who  remains  unmarried  because 


THE   SPINSTER  177 

she  relishes  the  wide  and  joyous  activity  fostered 
by  her  independence  is  a  transgressor  against 
social  laws.  She  sins  through  dire  selfishness, 
and  her  punishment  is  the  loss  of  all  that  gives 
dignity  and  importance  to  her  life.  Only  a 
few  months  ago  a  strenuous  advocate  of  mat- 
rimony—  as  if  matrimony  had  need  of  advo- 
cates —  pointed  out  judicially  in  "  Harper's 
Magazine"  that  the  childless  woman  has  no- 
thing to  show  for  all  the  strength  and  skill  she 
has  put  into  the  business  of  living.  She  may 
be  intelligent,  stimulating,  and  serene.  She  may 
have  seen  much  of  the  world,  and  have  taken  its 
lessons  to  heart.  She  may  have  filled  her  days 
with  useful  and  agreeable  occupations.  Never- 
theless, he  considers  her  existence  "  in  the  long 
run,  a  bootless  sort  of  errand ; "  doubting 
whether  she  has  acquired  anything  that  can 
make  life  more  interesting  to  her  at  thirty-five, 
at  forty-five,  at  seventy.  "And  so  much  the 
worse  for  her." 

This  is  assuming  that  there  are  no  interests 
outside  of  marriage;  no  emotions,  ambitions, 
nor  obligations  unconnected  with  the  rearing 
of  children.  We  are  invited  to  believe  that  the 


178  COMPROMISES 

great  world,  filled  to  its  brim  with  pleasures 
and  pains,  duties,  diversions,  and  responsibil- 
ities, cannot  keep  a  woman  going  —  even  to 
thirty-five — without  the  incentive  of  maternity. 
Accustomed  as  we  are  to  the  expansive  utter- 
ances of  conjugal  felicity,  this  seems  a  trifle 
overbearing.  Charles  Lamb  thought  it  hard  to 
be  asked  by  a  newly  wedded  lady  how  —  being 
a  bachelor  —  he  could  assume  to  know  anything 
about  the  breeding  of  oysters.  To-day  the 
expressed  doubt  is  how  —  being  spinsters  or 
bachelors  —  we  can  assume  to  know  anything 
about  the  serious  significance  of  life. 

It  is  not  the  rich  and  presumably  self-indul- 
gent woman  alone  who  is  admonished  to  mend 
her  ways  and  marry.  The  sentence  extends  to 
the  working  classes,  who  are  held  to  be  much 
in  fault.  Even  the  factory  girl,  toiling  for  her 
daily  bread,  has  been  made  the  subject  of  cen- 
sure as  unjust  as  it  is  severe.  What  if  she  does 
covet  the  few  poor  luxuries,  —  the  neat  shoes 
and  pretty  frock  which  represent  her  share  of 
aesthetic  development  ?  What  if  she  does  enjoy 
her  independence,  and  the  power  to  spend  as 
she  pleases  the  money  for  which  she  works  so 


THE    SPINSTER  179 

hard  ?  These  things  are  her  inalienable  rights. 
To  limit  them  is  tyranny.  To  denounce  them 
is  injustice.  We  may  sincerely  believe  that  she 
would  be  better  and  happier  if  she  married; 
and  that  the  bringing  up  of  children  on  the 
precarious  earnings  of  a  working-man  would  be 
a  more  legitimate  field  for  her  intelligence  and 
industry.  But  it  is  her  privilege  to  decide  this 
point  for  herself ;  and  no  one  is  warranted  in 
questioning  her  decision.  She  does  not  owe 
matrimony  to  the  world. 

There  is  still  another  class  of  women  whose 
spinsterhood  is  hardly  a  matter  of  choice,  yet 
whose  independence  has  aroused  especial  criti- 
cism and  denunciation.  A  few  years  ago  there 
appeared  in  "  Macmillan's  Magazine  "  a  well- 
written  article  on  the  educated,  unmarried,  and 
self-supporting  women,  who,  in  London  alone, 
fill  countless  clerical,  official,  and  academic 
positions.  It  was  pointed  out  that  these  toilers, 
debarred  by  poverty  from  agreeable  social  con- 
ditions, lead  lives  of  cheerful  and  honourable 
frugality,  preserving  their  self-respect,  seeking 
help  and  commiseration  from  none,  enjoying 
their  scanty  pleasures  with  intelligence,  and 


180  COMPROMISES 

doing  their  share  of  work  with  eager  and  anx- 
ious precision.  Surely  if  any  creatures  on  God's 
earth  merit  some  esteem,  these  spinsters  may 
be  held  in  deference.  Yet  the  writer  of  the 
article  unhesitatingly,  though  not  unkindly, 
summed  up  the  case  against  them.  No  woman 
with  a  sensitive  conscience,  he  avowed,  can  be 
happy  on  such  terms.  "  She  more  than  suspects 
she  is  in  danger  of  serious  moral  deterioration. 
.  .  .  She  is  aware  that  her  mode  of  life  is 
essentially  selfish,  and  therefore  stands  con- 
demned." 

In  the  name  of  Heaven,  why  ?  Would  her 
mode  of  life  be  less  selfish  if  she  asked  a 
support  from  a  married  brother,  or  a  wealthy 
aunt  ?  Is  it  necessary  to  her  moral  well-being 
that  she  should  pass  her  days  in  polite  servi- 
tude ?  Apparently  it  is  ;  for  hardly  had  the 
"  Macmillan  "  article  appeared,  when  a  more 
strenuous  critic  in  the  "  Spectator "  took  its 
writer  severely  to  task,  not  for  his  censorship, 
but  for  his  leniency.  The  "  Spectator "  de- 
clared in  round  terms  that  the  woman  who 
devotes  herself  to  the  difficult  problem  of  her 
own  support  "  lives  a  more  or  less  unnatural 


THE  SPINSTER  181 

life  of  self-dependence ;  —  the  degree  of  the 
unnaturalness  depending  on  the  degree  of  her 
self-dependence,  and  the  completeness  of  the 
disappearance  of  that  religious  devoutness 
which  prevents  loneliness  from  degenerating 
into  self-dependence." 

Shades  of  Addison  and  Steele  pardon 
this  cumbrous  sentence !  That  self-dependence 
might  degenerate  into  loneliness  we  can  un- 
derstand ;  but  how  or  why  should  loneliness 
degenerate  into  self-dependence,  and  what  has 
either  loneliness  or  self-dependence  to  do  with 
the  "  disappearance  of  religious  devoutness  "  ? 
Is  religion  also  a  perquisite  of  family  life  ? 
May  we  not  be  devout  in  solitude ?  "Be  able 
to  be  alone,"  counsels  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
whose  piety  was  of  a  most  satisfying  order. 
It  is  not  profane  to  plan  or  to  advance  an  in- 
dividual career.  We  do  not  insult  Providence 
by  endeavouring  to  provide  for  ourselves. 
And  if  the  restlessness  of  modern  life  impels 
women  of  independent  fortune  to  enter  con- 
genial fields  of  work,  the  freedom  to  do  this 
thing  is  their  birthright  and  prerogative.  "We 
can  no  more  sweep  back  the  rising  tide  of  in- 


182  COMPROMISES 

terests  and  ambitions  than  we  can  sweep  back 
the  waves  of  the  Atlantic.  A  hundred  years 
ago,  marriage  was  for  an  intelligent  woman 
a  necessary  entrance  into  life,  a  legitimate 
method  of  carrying  out  her  ideas  and  her  aims. 
To-day  she  tries  to  carry  them  out,  whether 
she  be  married  or  not.  Perhaps  some  awkward- 
ness of  self-assertion  disfigures  that  "  polished 
moderation  "  which  is  her  highest  grace  ;  but 
the  frank  resoluteness  of  her  attitude  is  more 
agreeable  to  contemplate  than  sad  passivity 
and  endurance.  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill  said 
that  a  woman's  inheritance  of  "  subjection  "  — 
he  never  minced  words  —  induced,  on  the  one 
hand,  a  capacity  for  self-sacrifice,  and,  on  the 
other,  a  habit  of  pusillanimity.  Both  character- 
istics have  been  modified  by  changing  circum- 
stances. But  with  more  courage  and  less  self- 
immolation  has  come  a  happier  outlook  upon 
life,  and  an  energy  which  is  not  always  mis- 
placed. Mariana  no  longer  waits  tearfully  in 
the  Moated  Grange.  She  leaves  it  as  quickly 
as  possible  for  some  more  healthful  habitation, 
and  a  more  engaging  pursuit. 

There  is  one    English  author  who  has  de- 


THE  SPINSTER  183 

fended  with  delicacy  that  sagacious  self-respect 
which,  even  in  his  time,  preserved  a  woman 
now  and  then  from  the  blunder  of  an  unequal 
and  unbecoming  marriage.  De  Quincey,  ex- 
tolling the  art  of  letter-writing,  pays  this  curi- 
ous bit  of  homage  to  his  most  valued  corre- 
spondents :  — 

"  Three  out  of  four  letters  in  the  mail-bag 
will  be  written  by  that  class  of  women  who  have 
the  most  leisure,  and  the  most  interest  in  a 
correspondence  by  the  post ;  and  who  combine 
more  intelligence,  cultivation,  and  thoughtful- 
ness  than  any  other  class  in  Europe.  They  are 
the  unmarried  women  over  twenty-five,  who, 
from  mere  dignity  of  character,  have  renounced 
all  prospects  of  conjugal  and  parental  life, 
rather  than  descend  into  habits  unsuitable  to 
their  birth.  Women  capable  of  such  sacrifices, 
and  marked  by  such  strength  of  mind,  may  be 
expected  to  think  with  deep  feeling,  and  to 
express  themselves  (unless  when  they  have  been 
too  much  biassed  by  bookish  connections)  with 
natural  grace." 

This  is  something  very  different  from  the 
"All  for  Love,  and  the  World  well  lost," 


184  COMPROMISES 

flaunted  by  novelists  and  poets  ;  very  different 
from  the  well-worn  "  Quand  on  n'a  pas  ce  qu'on 
aime,  il  faut  aimer  ce  qu'on  a,"  which  has 
married  generations  of  women.  But  in  the 
philosophy  of  life,  the  power  to  estimate  and  to 
balance  scores  heavily  for  success.  It  is  not  an 
easy  thing  to  be  happy.  It  takes  all  the  brains, 
and  all  the  soul,  and  all  the  goodness  we 
possess.  We  may  fail  of  our  happiness,  strive 
we  ever  so  bravely ;  but  we  are  less  likely  to 
fail  if  we  measure  with  judgment  our  chances 
and  our  capabilities.  To  glorify  spinsterhood  is 
as  ridiculous  as  to  decry  it.  Intelligent  women 
marry  or  remain  single,  because  in  married  or 
in  single  life  they  see  their  way  more  clearly  to 
content.  They  do  not,  in  either  case,  quarrel 
with  fate  which  has  modelled  them  for,  and 
fitted  them  into,  one  groove  rather  than  another ; 
but  follow,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the 
noble  maxim  of  Marcus  Aurelius :  "  Love  that 
only  which  the  gods  send  thee,  and  which  is 
spun  with  the  thread  of  thy  destiny." 


THE  TOURIST 

See  Thrale's  grey  widow  with  a  satchel  roam, 
And  bring  in  pomp  laborious  nothings  home. 

The  Baviad. 

"  POTTER  hates  Potter,  and  Poet  hates  Poet," 
—  so  runs  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients,  —  but 
tourist  hates  tourist  with  a  cordial  Christian 
animosity  that  casts  all  Pagan  prejudices  in 
the  shade.  At  home  we  tolerate  —  sometimes 
we  even  love  —  our  fellow  creatures.  We  can 
see  large  masses  of  them  in  church  and  theatre, 
we  can  be  jostled  by  them  in  streets,  and  be 
kept  waiting  by  them  in  shops,  and  be  incon- 
venienced by  them  at  almost  every  turn,  with- 
out rancorous  annoyance  or  ill  will.  But  abroad 
it  is  our  habit  to  regard  all  other  travellers  in 
the  light  of  personal  and  unpardonable  griev- 
ances. They  are  intruders  into  our  chosen 
realms  of  pleasure,  they  jar  upon  our  sensi- 
bilities, they  lessen  our  meagre  share  of  com- 
forts, they  are  everywhere  in  our  way,  they 


186  COMPROMISES 

are  always  an  unnecessary  feature  in  the  land- 
scape. 

I  love  not  man  the  less,  but  nature  more, 

wrote  Byron,  when  sore  beset ;  but  the  remark 
cannot  be  said  to  bear  the  stamp  of  truth. 
Nine  tenths  of  the  poet's  love  for  nature  was 
irritation  at  the  boundless  injustice  and  the 
sterling  stupidity  of  man.  He  would  never  have 
expressed  so  much  general  benevolence  had 
Europe  in  his  time  been  the  tourist-trodden 
platform  it  is  to-day. 

We  might,  were  we  disposed  to  be  reason- 
able, bear  in  mind  the  humiliating  fact  that 
we  too  are  aliens,  out  of  harmony  with  our 
surroundings,  and  marring,  as  far  as  in  us  lies, 
the  charm  of  ancient  street  or  the  still  moun- 
tain side.  Few  of  us,  however,  are  so  candid 
as  Mr.  Henry  James,  who,  while  detesting  his 
fellow  travellers,  frankly  admits  his  own  in- 
herent undesirability.  "  We  complain,"  he 
says,  "of  a  hackneyed  and  cockneyized  Eu- 
rope ;  but  wherever,  in  desperate  search  of  the 
untrodden,  we  carry  our  much-labelled  lug- 
gage, our  bad  French,  our  demand  for  a  sitz- 

e   o   " 

bath  and  pale  ale,  we  rub  off  the  bloom  of 


THE    TOURIST  187 

local  colour,  and    establish   a   precedent   for 
unlimited  intrusion." 

This  is  generous,  and  it  is  not  a  common 
point  of  view.  "Americans  do  roam  so,"  I 
heard  an  Englishwoman  remark  discontentedly 
in  Cook's  Paris  office,  where  she  was  waiting 
with  manifest  impatience  while  the  clerk  made 
up  tickets  for  a  party  of  trans- Atlantic  kin- 
dred. It  never  seemed  to  occur  to  her  that  she 
was  not  upon  her  own  native  heath.  The  habit 
of  classifying  our  distastes  proves  how  strong 
is  our  general  sense  of  injury.  We  dislike 
English  tourists  more  than  French,  or  French 
more  than  English,  or  Americans  more  than 
either,  or  Germans  most  of  all,  —  the  last  a 
common  verdict.  There  is  a  power  of  universal 
mastery  about  the  travelling  Teuton  which 
affronts  our  feebler  souls.  We  cannot  cope 
with  him  ;  we  stand  defeated  at  every  turn  by 
his  resistless  determination  to  secure  the  best. 
The  windows  of  the  railway  carriages,  the  little 
sunny  tables  in  the  hotel  dining-rooms,  the 
back  seats  —  commanding  the  view  —  of  the 
Swiss  funiculaires  ;  — all  these  strong  positions 
he  occupies  at  once  with  the  strategical  genius 


188  COMPROMISES 

of  a  great  military  nation.  No  weak  concern 
for  other  people's  comfort  mars  the  simple 
straightforwardness  of  his  plans,  nor  interferes 
with  their  prompt  and  masterly  execution. 
Amid  the  confusion  and  misery  of  French  and 
Italian  railway  stations,  he  plays  a  conqueror's 
part,  commanding  the  services  of  the  porters, 
and  marching  off  triumphantly  with  his  in- 
numerable pieces  of  hand  luggage,  while  his 
fellow  tourists  clamour  helplessly  for  aid.  "  The 
Germans  are  a  rude,  unmannered  race,  but 
active  and  expert  where  their  personal  advan- 
tages are  concerned,"  wrote  the  observant 
Froissart  many  years  ago.  He  could  say  nei- 
ther more  nor  less  were  he  travelling  over  the 
Continent  to-day. 

Granted  that  the  scurrying  crowds  who  in- 
fest Italy  every  spring,  and  Switzerland  every 
summer,  are  seldom  "  children  of  light ;  "  that 
their  motives  in  coming  are,  for  the  most  part, 
unintelligible,  and  their  behaviour  the  reverse 
of  urbane ;  —  even  then  there  seems  to  be  no 
real  cause  for  the  demoralization  that  follows 
in  their  wake,  for  the  sudden  and  bitter  change 
that  comes  over  a  land  when  once  the  stranger 


THE   TOURIST  189 

claims  it  as  his  own.  It  is  the  cordial  effort 
made  to  meet  the  tourist  halfway,  to  minister 
to  his  supposed  wants,  and  to  profit  by  his  sup- 
posed wealth,  that  desolates  the  loveliest  cities 
in  the  world,  that  flouts  the  face  of  nature,  and 
rasps  our  most  tender  sensibilities.  Venice 
turned  into  a  grand  bazaar,  Yaucluse  packed 
with  stalls  for  the  sale  of  every  object  which 
ought  never  to  be  found  there,  the  Falls  of  the 
Rhine  lit  up  by  electricity,  like  the  transforma- 
tion scene  of  a  ballet ;  —  is  it  our  misfortune 
or  our  fault  that  these  things  may  be  directly 
traceable  to  us  ?  Do  we  like  to  see  a  trolley- 
car  bumping  its  way  to  Chillon,  or  to  find  the 
castle  entrance  stocked  with  silver  spoons,  and 
wooden  bears,  and  miniature  Swiss  chalets? 
Shall  I  confess  that  I  watched  a  youthful 
countrywoman  of  my  own  carrying  delightedly 
away  —  as  an  appropriate  souvenir  of  the 
spot  —  a  group  consisting  of  Mother  bear  sit- 
ting up  languidly  in  bed,  Nurse  bear  wrapping 
Infant  bear  in  swaddling-cloths,  and  Doctor 
bear  holding  a  labelled  bottle  of  medicine  ? 
There  seemed  a  certain  incongruity  about  the 
purchase,  and  a  certain  lack  of  sensibility  in 


190  COMPROMISES 

the  purchaser.  Chillon  is  not  without  sombre 
associations,  nor  poetic  life ;  and  if  Byron's 
"  Prisoner  "  no  longer  wrings  our  hearts,  still 
youth  is  youth,  —  or,  at  least,  it  used  to  be,  — 
and  the 

seven  columns,  massy  and  grey, 

were  at  one  time  part  of  its  inheritance.  Is  it 
better,  I  wonder,  to  begin  life  with  a  few  illu- 
sions, a  little  glow,  a  pardonable  capacity  for 
enthusiasm,  or  to  be  so  healthily  free  from 
every  breath  of  sentiment  as  to  be  capable  — 
at  eighteen  —  of  buying  comic  bears  within  the 
melancholy  portals  of  Chillon. 

Travelling,  like  novel-writing,  is  but  a  mod- 
ern form  of  activity ;  and  tourists,  like  novel- 
ists, are  increasing  at  so  fearful  a  rate  of  speed 
that  foreign  countries  and  library  shelves  bid 
fair  to  be  equally  overrun.  There  was  a  time 
when  good  men  looked  askance  both  upon  the 
page  of  fable,  and  upon  those  far  countries 
where  reality  was  stranger  than  romance.  "  I 
was  once  in  Italy  myself,"  confesses  the  pious 
Koger  Ascham ;  "  but  I  thank  God  my  abode 
there  was  but  nine  days."  Nine  days  seem  a 
scant  allowance  for  Italy.  Even  the  business- 


THE    TOURIST  191 

like  traveller  who  now  scampers  "  more  Ameri- 
cano "  over  Europe  is  wont  to  deal  more  gen- 
erously with  this,  its  fairest  land.  But  in  Roger 
Ascham's  time  nine  days  would  hardly  have 
permitted  a  glimpse  at  the  wonders  from  which 
he  so  swiftly  and  fearfully  withdrew. 

Now  and  then,  as  years  went  by,  men  with 
a  genuine  love  of  roving  and  adventure  wan- 
dered far  afield,  unbaffled  by  difficulties,  and 
unscandalized  by  foreign  creeds  and  customs. 
James  Howell,  that  most  delightful  of  gossips 
and  chroniclers,  has  so  much  to  say  in  praise 
of  "  the  sweetness  and  advantage  of  travel," 
that  even  now  his  letters  —  nearly  three  hun- 
dred years  old  —  stir  in  our  hearts  the  way- 
farer's restless  longing.  After  being  "toss'd 
from  shore  to  shore  for  thirty-odd  months,"  he 
can  still  write  stoutly :  "  And  tho'  these  fre- 
quent removes  and  tumblings  under  climes  of 
differing  temper  were  not  without  some  danger, 
yet  the  delight  which  accompany'd  them  was 
far  greater ;  and  it  is  impossible  for  any  man 
to  conceive  the  true  pleasure  of  peregrination, 
but  he  who  actually  enjoys  and  puts  it  into 
practice."  Moreover,  he  is  well  assured  that 


192  COMPROMISES 

travel  is  "  a  profitable  school,  a  running  acad- 
emy, and  nothing  conduceth  more  to  the  build- 
ing up  and  perfecting  of  a  man.  They  that 
traverse  the  world  up  and  down  have  the  clear- 
est understanding ;  being  faithful  eye-witnesses 
of  those  things  which  others  receive  but  in 
trust,  whereunto  they  must  yield  an  intuitive 
consent,  and  a  kind  of  implicit  faith." 

In  one  respect,  however,  Howell  was  a  true 
son  of  his  day,  of  the  day  when  Prelacy  and 
Puritanism  alternately  afflicted  England.  For 
foreign  cities  and  foreign  citizens  he  had  a  keen 
and  intelligent  appreciation ;  nothing  daunted 
his  purpose,  nor  escaped  his  observation ;  but 
he  drew  the  line  consistently  at  the  charms  of 
nature.  The  "  high  and  hideous  Alps  "  were  as 
abhorrent  to  his  soul  as  they  were,  a  century 
later,  to  Horace  Walpole's.  It  was  the  gradual 
—  I  had  almost  said  the  regrettable  —  discovery 
of  beauty  in  these  "  uncouth,  huge,  monstrous 
excrescences  "  which  gave  a  new  and  powerful 
impetus  to  travel.  Here  at  least  were  innocent 
objects  of  pilgrimage,  wonders  uncontaminated 
by  the  evils  which  were  vaguely  supposed  to 
lurk  in  the  hearts  of  Paris  and  of  Rome.  It 


THE    TOURIST  193 

was  many,  many  years  after  Roger  Ascham's 
praiseworthy  flight  from  Italy  that  we  find  Patty 
More,  sister  to  the  ever-virtuous  Hannah,  writ- 
ing apprehensively  to  a  friend  :  — 

"  What  is  to  become  of  us  ?  All  the  world, 
as  it  seems,  flying  off  to  France,  that  land  of 
deep  corruption  and  wickedness,  made  hotter 
in  sin  by  this  long  and  dreadful  Revolution. 
The  very  curates  in  our  neighbourhood  have 
been.  I  fear  a  deterioration  in  the  English 
character  is  taking  place.  The  Ambassador's 
lady  in  Paris  could  not  introduce  the  English 
ladies  till  they  had  covered  up  their  bodies." 

This  sounds  rather  as  though  England  were 
corrupting  France.  Perhaps,  notwithstanding 
the  truly  reprehensible  conduct  of  the  curates, 
—  for  whom  no  excuse  can  be  made,  —  the 
exodus  was  not  so  universal  as  the  agitated 
Mrs.  Patty  seemed  to  think.  There  were  still 
plenty  of  stay-at-homes,  lapped  in  rural  virtues, 
and  safe  from  contamination ;  —  like  the  squire 
who  told  Jane  Austen's  father  that  he  and  his 
wife  had  been  quarrelling  the  night  before  as 
to  whether  Paris  were  in  France,  or  France  in 
Paris.  The  "  Roman  Priest  Conversion  Branch 


194  COMPROMISES 

Tract  Society  "  gave  to  bucolic  Britain  all  the 
Continental  details  it  required. 

But  when  the  "  hideous  Alps  "  became  the 
"  matchless  heights,"  the  "  palaces  of  Nature," 
when  poets  had  sung  their  praises  lustily,  and 
it  had  dawned  upon  the  minds  of  unpoetic  men 
that  they  were  not  merely  obstacles  to  be 
crossed,  but  objects  to  be  looked  at  and  ad- 
mired ;  —  then  were  gathered  slowly  the  ad- 
vance guards  of  that  mighty  army  of  sight-seers 
which  sweeps  over  Europe  to-day.  "  Switzer- 
land," writes  Mr.  James  gloomily,  "  has  become 
a  show  country.  I  think  so  more  and  more 
every  time  I  come  here.  Its  use  in  the  world 
is  to  reassure  persons  of  a  benevolent  imagi- 
nation who  wish  the  majority  of  mankind  had 
only  a  little  more  elevating  amusement.  Here 
is  amusement  for  a  thousand  years,  and  as 
elevating  certainly  as  mountains  five  miles  high 
can  make  it.  I  expect  to  live  to  see  the  summit 
of  Mount  Kosa  heated  by  steam-tubes,  and 
adorned  with  a  hotel  setting  three  dinners  a 
day." 

The  last  words  carry  a  world  of  weight. 
They  are  the  key-note  of  the  situation.  Tour- 


THE   TOURIST  195 

ists  in  these  years  of  grace  need  a  vast  deal  of 
food  and  drink  to  keep  their  enthusiasm  warm. 
James  Howell  lived  contentedly  upon  bread 
and  grapes  for  three  long  months  in  Spain. 
Byron  wrote  mockingly  from  Lisbon :  "  Com- 
fort must  not  be  expected  by  folks  that  go 
a-pleasuring ;  "  and  no  one  ever  bore  manifold 
discomforts  with  more  endurance  and  gayety 
than  he  did.  But  now  that  the  "  grand  tour  " 
—  once  the  experience  of  a  lifetime  —  has 
become  a  succession  of  little  tours,  undertaken 
every  year  or  two,  things  are  made  easy  for 
slackened  sinews  and  impaired  digestions.  The 
average  traveller  concentrates  his  attention 
sternly  upon  the  slowness  of  the  Italian  trains, 
the  shortness  of  the  Swiss  beds,  the  surliness 
of  the  German  officials,  the  dirt  of  the  French 
inns,  the  debatableness  of  the  Spanish  butter, 
the  universal  and  world-embracing  badness  of 
the  tea.  These  things  form  the  staple  topics 
of  discussion  among  men  and  women  who  ex- 
change confidences  at  the  table  d'hote,  and  they 
lend  a  somewhat  depressing  tone  to  the  conver- 
sation, which  is  not  greatly  enlivened  by  a  few 
side  remarks  connecting  the  drinking  water 


196  COMPROMISES 

with  the  germs  of  typhoid  fever.  It  is  possible 
that  the  talkers  have  enjoyed  some  exhilarating 
experiences,  some  agreeable  sensations,  which 
they  hesitate  —  mistakenly — to  reveal;  but 
they  wax  eloquent  on  the  subject  of  cost.  "  The 
continual  attention  to  pecuniary  disburse- 
ments detracts  terribly  from  the  pleasure  of  all 
travelling  schemes,"  wrote  Shelley  in  a  moment 
of  dejection  ;  and  the  sentiment,  couched  in  less 
Johnsonian  English,  is  monotonously  familiar 
to-day.  Paying  for  things  is  a  great  trouble 
and  a  great  expense  ;  and  the  tourist's  uneasy 
apprehension  that  he  is  being  overcharged  turns 
this  ordinary  process  —  which  is  not  wholly 
unknown  at  home  —  into  a  bitter  grievance. 
To  hear  him  expatiate  upon  the  subject,  one 
might  imagine  that  his  fellow  creatures  had 
heretofore  supplied  all  his  wants  for  love. 

Great  Britain  had  sent  her  restless  children 
out  to  see  the  world  for  many  years  before  far- 
away America  joined  in  the  sport,  while  the 
overwhelming  increase  of  German  travellers 
dates  only  from  the  Franco-Prussian  War. 
Now  the  three  armies  of  occupation  march  and 
countermarch  over  the  Continent,  very  much  in 


THE    TOURIST  197 

one  another's  way,  and  deeply  resentful  of  one 
another's  intrusion.  "  The  English  "  —  again 
I  venture  to  quote  Froissart  —  "  are  affable  to 
no  other  nation  than  their  own."  The  Ameri- 
cans —  so  other  Americans  piteously  lament — 
are  noisy,  self-assertive,  and  contemptuous. 
The  fault  of  the  Germans,  as  Canning  said  of 
the  Dutch,  — 

Is  giving-  too  little  and  asking  too  much. 

All  these  unlovely  characteristics  are  stimu- 
lated and  kept  well  to  the  fore  by  travel.  It  is 
only  in  our  fellow  tourists  that  we  can  recog- 
nize their  enormity.  When  Mr.  Arnold  said 
that  Shakespeare  and  Virgil  would  have  found 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  "intolerable  company," 
he  was  probably  thinking  of  poets  and  pietists 
shut  up  together  in  fair  weather  and  in  foul, 
while  the  little  Mayflower  pitched  its  slow  way 
across  the  "  estranging  sea." 

It  requires  a  good  deal  of  courage  to  quote 
Lord  Chesterfield  seriously  in  these  years  of 
grace.  His  reasonableness  is  out  of  favour 
with  moralists,  and  sentimentalists,  and  earnest 
thinkers  generally.  But  we  might  find  it  help- 
ful now  and  then,  were  we  not  too  wrapped 


198  COMPROMISES 

in  self-esteem  to  be  so  easily  helped.  "  Good 
breeding,"  he  says  thoughtfully,  "  is  a  combi- 
nation of  much  sense,  some  good  nature,  and 
a  little  self-denial  for  the  sake  of  others,  with  a 
view  to  obtain  the  same  indulgence  from  them." 
Here  is  a  "Tourist's  Guide,"  —  the  briefest 
ever  penned.  We  cannot  learn  to  love  other 
tourists,  —  the  laws  of  nature  forbid  it,  —  but, 
meditating  soberly  on  the  impossibility  of  their 
loving  us,  we  may  reach  some  common  platform 
of  tolerance,  some  common  exchange  of  recog- 
nition and  amenity. 


THE    HEADSMAN 

Et  cependant,  toute  grandeur,  toute  puissance,  toute 
subordination  repose  sur  l'exe"cuteur :  il  est  1'horreur  et 
le  lien  de  1'association  humaine.  Otez  du  monde  cet  agent 
incomprehensible ;  dans  1'instant  meme  1'ordre  fait  place 
au  chaos,  les  trones  s'abiment,  et  la  soci^te"  disparait. 

JOSEPH  DB  MAISTBE. 

WHAT  a  sombre  and  striking  figure  in  the 
deeply  coloured  background  of  history  is  the 
headsman,  that  passive  agent  of  strange  tyran- 
nies, that  masked  executor  of  laws  which  were 
often  but  the  expression  of  man's  violence !  He 
stands  aloof  from  the  brilliant  web  of  life,  yet, 
turn  where  we  will,  his  shadow  falls  across 
the  scene.  In  the  little  walled  towns  of  me- 
dieval Europe,  in  the  splendid  cities,  in  the 
broad  lands  held  by  feudal  lord  or  stately  mon- 
astery, wherever  the  struggle  for  freedom  and 
power  was  sharpest  and  sternest,  the  headsman 
played  his  part.  An  unreasoning  and  richly 
imaginative  fear  wrapped  him  in  a  mantle  of 
romance,  as  deeply  stained  as  the  scarlet  cloak 


200  COMPROMISES 

which  was  his  badge  of  office.  Banished  from 
the  cheerful  society  of  men  (de  Maistre  tells 
us  that  if  other  houses  surrounded  his  abode, 
they  were  deserted,  and  left  to  crumble  and 
decay),  he  enjoyed  privileges  that  compen- 
sated him  for  his  isolation.  His  tithes  were 
exacted  as  ruthlessly  as  were  those  of  prince 
or  baron  ;  and  if  his  wife  chattered  little 
on  summer  days  with  friendly  gossips,  she  was 
sought  in  secret  after  nightfall  for  hideous 
amulets  that  blessed  —  or  cursed  —  the  wearer. 
From  father  to  son,  from  son  to  grandson, 
the  right  was  handed  down ;  and  the  young 
boy  was  taught  to  lift  and  swing  the  heavy 
sword,  that  his  hand  might  be  as  sure  as  his 
eye,  his  muscles  as  hard  as  his  heart. 

Much  of  life's  brilliant  panorama  was  seen 
from  the  elevation  of  the  scaffold  in  the  days 
when  men  had  no  chance  nor  leisure  to  die 
lingeringly  in  their  beds.  They  fell  fighting, 
or  by  the  assassin's  hand,  or  by  the  help  of 
what  was  then  termed  law ;  and  the  headsman, 
standing  ever  ready  for  his  role,  beheld  hu- 
man nature  in  its  worst  and  noblest  aspects, 
in  moments  of  stern  endurance  and  supreme 


THE  HEADSMAN  201 

emotion,  of  heroic  ecstasy  and  blank  despair. 
Had  he  a  turn  for  the  marvellous,  it  was  grati- 
fied. He  saw  Saint  Denis  arise  and  carry  his 
severed  head  from  Montmartre  to  the  site  of 
the  church  which  bears  his  name  to-day.  He 
saw  Saint  Felix  and  Saint  Alban  repeat 
the  miracle.  He  heard  Lucre tia  of  Ancona 
pronounce  the  sacred  name  three  times  after 
decapitation.  Ordericus  Vitalis,  that  most  en- 
gaging of  historians,  tells  us  the  story  of  the 
fair  Lucretia  ;  and  also  of  the  Count  de  Galles, 
who  asked  upon  the  scaffold  for  time  in  which 
to  say  his  Pater  Noster.  When  he  reached 
the  words,  Et  ne  nos  inducas  in  tentationem, 
the  headsman  —  all  unworthy  of  his  office  — 
grew  impatient,  and  brought  down  his  shining 
sword.  The  Count's  head  rolled  on  the  ground, 
but  from  his  open  lips  came  with  terrible  dis- 
tinctness the  final  supplication,  Sed  libera  nos 
a  malo. 

These  were  not  trivial  experiences.  What  a 
tale  to  tell  o'  nights  was  that  of  Theodoric 
Schawembourg,  whose  headless  trunk  arose 
and  walked  thirty  paces  from  the  block !  Au- 
berive,  who  has  preserved  this  famous  legend, 


202  COMPROMISES 

embroiders  it  with  so  many  fantastic  details 
that  the  salient  point  of  the  narrative  is  well- 
nigh  lost ;  but  the  dead  and  forgotten  heads- 
man beheld  the  deed  in  all  its  crude  simplicity. 
Had  he,  on  the  other  hand,  a  taste  for  experi- 
mental science,  it  was  given  him  to  watch  the 
surgeons  of  Prague,  who  in  1679  replaced  a 
severed  head  upon  a  young  criminal's  shoulders, 
and  kept  the  lad  alive  for  half  an  hour.  Pan- 
urge,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  permanently 
successful  in  a  similar  operation  ;  but  Panurge 
was  a  man  of  genius.  We  should  hardly  expect 
to  find  his  like  among  the  doctors  of  Prague. 

Strange  and  unreasonable  laws  guaranteed 
to  the  headsman  his  full  share  of  emoluments. 
He  was  well  paid  for  his  work,  and  never  suf- 
fered from  a  dull  season.  From  the  towns  he 
received  poultry  and  fodder,  from  the  monas- 
teries, fish  and  game.  The  Abbaye  de  Saint- 
Germain  gave  him  every  year  a  pig's  head ; 
the  Abbaye  de  Saint-Martin  five  loaves  of 
bread  and  five  bottles  of  wine.  Cakes  were 
baked  for  him  on  the  eve  of  Epiphany.  From 
each  leper  in  the  community  he  exacted  — 
Heaven  knows  why !  —  a  tax  at  Christmas- 


THE   HEADSMAN  203 

time.  Les  files  dejoie  were  his  vassals,  and 
paid  him  tribute.  He  had  the  power  to  save 
from  death  any  woman  on  her  way  to  the  scaf- 
fold, provided  he  were  able  and  willing  to  marry 
her.  He  was  the  first  official  summoned  to  the 
body  of  a  suicide ;  and  standing  on  the  dead 
man's  breast,  he  claimed  as  his  own  everything 
he  could  touch  with  the  point  of  his  long  sword. 
He  might,  if  he  chose,  arrest  the  little  pigs  that 
strayed  in  freedom  through  the  streets  of  Paris, 

—  like  the  happy  Plantagenet  pigs  of  London, 

—  and  carry  them  as  prisoners  to  the  Hotel 
Dieu.    Here,  unless   it  could   be   shown  that 
they  belonged  to  the  monks  of  Saint  Anthony, 
and  so,  for  the  sake  of  the  good  pig  that  loved 
the  blessed  hermit,  were  free  from  molestation, 
their  captor  demanded  their  heads,  or  a  fine  of 
five  sous  for  every  ransomed  innocent.    It  was 
his  privilege  to  snatch  in  the  market-place  as 
much  corn  as  he  could  carry  away  in  his  hands, 
and  the  peasants  thus  freely  robbed  submitted 
without  a  murmur,  crossing  themselves  with 
fervour  as  he  passed.    The  representative  of  law 
and  order  was  not  unlike  a  licensed  libertine 
in  the  easy  day  of  old. 


204  COMPROMISES 

The  element  of  picturesqueness  entered  into 
this  life,  sombre  traditions  enriched  it,  terror 
steeped  it  in  gloom,  the  power  for  which  it 
stood  lent  to  it  dignity  and  weight.  In  Spain 
the  headsman  wore  a  distinctive  dress,  and  his 
house  was  painted  a  deep  and  ominous  red. 
In  France  the  ancient  title  "Executeur  de  la 
haute  justice "  had  a  full-blown  majesty  of 
sound.  In  Germany  superstition  grew  like  a 
fungus  beneath  the  scaffold's  shade,  until  even 
the  sword  was  believed  to  be  a  sentient  thing 
with  strange  powers  of  its  own.  Who  can 
forget  the  story  of  the  child  Annerl,  whose 
mother  took  her  to  the  headsman's  house, 
whereupon  the  great  weapon  stirred  uneasily 
in  its  cupboard,  thirsting  for  her  blood.  Then 
the  headsman  besought  the  mother  to  allow 
him  to  cut  the  little  girl  very  lightly,  that  the 
sword  might  be  appeased ;  but  she  shudder- 
ingly  refused,  and  Annerl,  abandoned  to  her 
destiny,  was  led  thirty  years  later  to  the  block. 
Executions  at  night  were  long  in  favour,  and  by 
the  flare  of  torches  the  scaffold  stood  revealed 
to  a  great  and  gaping  crowd.  For  centuries  la 
place  de  Greve  was  the  theatre  for  this  ghastly 


THE   HEADSMAN  205 

drama,  until  every  foot  of  the  soil  was  satu- 
rated with  blood.  Only  in  1633  were  these 
torchlight  decapitations  forbidden  throughout 
France.  They  had  grown  too  turbulently  en- 
tertaining. 

The  headsman's  office  was  hereditary,  and  if 
there  were  no  sons,  a  son-in-law  succeeded  to  the 
post.  Henri  Sanson,  the  last  of  his  dread  name, 
claimed  that  he  was  of  good  blood,  and  that 
the  far-off  ancestor  who  handed  down  his  sword 
to  nine  generations  had  been  betrayed  by  love 
to  this  dark  destiny.  He  had  married  a  heads- 
man's daughter,  and  could  not  escape  the  ter- 
rible dowry  she  brought  him.  It  is  not  possible 
to  attach  much  weight  to  the  Sanson  memoirs, 
—  they  are  so  plainly  apocryphal ;  but  we  know 
that  the  family  plied  its  craft  for  nearly  two 
hundred  years,  and  that  one  woman  of  the  race 
bore  seven  sons,  who  all  became  executioners. 
In  1726  Charles  Sanson  died,  leaving  a  little 
boy,  Jean  Baptiste,  only  seven  years  old.  Upon 
him  devolved  his  father's  office ;  but,  in  view 
of  his  tender  infancy,  an  assistant  was  ap- 
pointed to  do  the  work  until  he  came  of  age. 
It  was  required,  however,  that  the  child  should 


206  COMPROMISES 

stand  upon  the  scaffold  at  every  execution, 
sanctioning  it  with  his  presence. 

The  pride  of  the  headsman  lay  in  his  dex- 
terity. The  sword  was  heavy,  the  stroke  was 
sure.  Capeluche,  who  during  the  furious  strug- 
gle between  the  Armagnacs  and  the  Bur- 
gundiaus  severed  many  a  noble  head,  was  a 
true  enthusiast,  practising  his  art  con  amore, 
and  with  incredible  delicacy  and  skill.  When 
the  fortunes  of  war  brought  him  in  turn  upon 
the  scaffold,  he  proved  no  craven ;  but  took 
a  lively  and  intelligent  interest  in  his  own 
decapitation.  His  last  moments  were  spent  in 
giving  a  practical  lesson  to  the  executioner ; 
showing  him  where  to  stand,  where  to  place 
the  block,  and  how  best  to  handle  his  weapon. 

The  vast  audience  that  assembled  so  often  to 
witness  a  drama  never  staled  by  repetition  was 
wont  to  be  exceedingly  critical.  Bungling  work 
drew  down  upon  the  headsman  the  execrations 
of  the  mob,  and  not  infrequently  placed  his 
own  Jife  in  danger.  De  Thou's  head  fell  only 
at  the  eleventh  stroke,  the  Duke  of  Monmouth 
was  mangled  piteously,  and  in  both  these  in- 
stances the  fury  of  the  mob  rose  to  murder 


THE  HEADSMAN  207 

point.  It  was  ostensibly  to  save  such  suffer- 
ings and  such  scenes  that  the  guillotine  was 
adopted  in  France ;  but  for  the  guillotine  it  is 
impossible  to  cherish  any  sentiment  save  ab- 
horrence. Vile,  vulgar,  and  brutalizing,  its 
only  merit  was  the  hideous  speed  with  which  it 
did  its  work ;  a  speed  which  the  despots  of  the 
Terror  never  found  fast  enough.  In  October, 
1792,  twenty-one  Girondists  were  beheaded  in 
thirty-one  minutes ;  but  as  practice  made  per- 
fect, these  figures  were  soon  outdistanced.  The 
highest  record  reached  was  sixty-two  decapita- 
tions in  forty-five  minutes,  which  sounds  like 
the  work  of  the  shambles. 

Charles  Henri  Sanson,  the  presiding  genius 
of  the  guillotine,  has  been  lifted  to  notoriety 
by  the  torrents  of  blood  he  shed ;  but  his  is 
a  contemptible  figure,  without  any  of  the  dark 
distinction  that  marked  his  predecessors.  His 
pages  of  the  family  memoirs  are  probably 
mendacious,  and  certainly,  as  M.  Loye  pa- 
thetically laments,  "  insipid."  He  poses  as  a 
physiologist,  and  tells  strange  tales  of  the 
condemned  who  long  survived  beheading,  as 
though  sixty -two  executions  in  forty -five 


208  COMPROMISES 

minutes  left  leisure  for  the  study  of  such 
phenomena.  He  also  affects  the  tone  of  a  phil- 
anthropist, commiserates  the  king  who  died  by 
his  hands,  and  is  careful  to  assure  us  that  it 
was  an  assistant  named  Legros  who,  holding 
up  the  severed  head  of  Charlotte  Corday, 
struck  the  fair  cheek  which  blushed  beneath 
the  blow.  We  are  even  asked  to  believe  that 
he,  Sanson,  whispered  to  Marie  Antoinette 
as  she  descended  from  the  cart,  "Have 
courage,  Madame  !  "  —  counsel  of  which  that 
daughter  of  the  Caesars  stood  in  little  need. 

The  contrast  is  sharp  between  this  business- 
like butchery,  where  the  condemned  were  be- 
grudged the  time  it  took  to  die,  and  the  earlier 
executions,  so  full  of  dignity  and  composure. 
The  vilest  criminals  felt  intuitively  that  the 
fulness  of  their  atonement  consecrated  those 
last  sad  moments,  and  behaved  often  with  un- 
expected propriety  and  grace.  Mme.  de  Brin- 
villiers  was  a  full  half  hour  upon  the  scaffold. 
The  headsman  prepared  her  for  death,  untying 
her  cap-strings,  cutting  off  her  hair,  baring  her 
shoulders,  and  binding  her  hands.  She  was 
composed  without  bravado,  contrite  without 


THE   HEADSMAN  209 

sanctimoniousness.  "  I  doubt,"  wrote  her  con- 
fessor, the  Abbe  Piron,  "  whether  in  all  her 
"life  she  had  ever  been  so  patient  under  the 
hands  of  her  maid."  Some  natural  scorn  she 
expressed  at  sight  of  the  crowd  straining  with 
curiosity  to  see  her  die  :  "  Un  beau  spectacle, 
Mesdames  et  Messieurs  !  "  —  but  this  was  all. 
The  executioner  swept  off  her  head  with  one 
swift  stroke ;  then,  hastily  opening  a  flask, 
took  a  deep  draught  of  wine.  "That  was  a 
good  blow,"  he  said  to  the  Abbe.  "  At  these 
times  I  always  recommend  myself  to  God,  and 
He  has  never  failed  me.  This  lady  has  been 
on  my  mind  for  a  week  past.  I  will  have  six 
Masses  said  for  her  soul."  Surely  such  a 
headsman  ennobled  in  some  degree  the  direful 
post  he  bore. 

If  a  murderess,  inconceivably  callous  and 
cruel,  could  die  with  dignity,  what  of  the 
countless  scenes  where  innocence  was  sacri- 
ficed to  ambition,  and  where  the  best  and 
noblest  blood  of  Europe  was  shed  upon  the 
block  ?  What  of  the  death  of  Conradin  on  a 
Neapolitan  scaffold?  In  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, boys  grew  quickly  into  manhood,  and 


210  COMPROMISES 

Conradin  was  seventeen.  He  had  embarked 
early  upon  that  desperate  game,  of  which  the 
prize  was  a  throne,  and  the  forfeit,  life.  He 
had  missed  his  throw,  and  earned  his  penalty. 
But  he  was  the  grandson  of  an  emperor,  the 
heir  of  an  imperial  crown,  and  the  last  of  a 
proud  race.  There  was  a  pathetic  boyishness 
in  the  sudden  defiance  with  which  he  hurled 
his  glove  into  the  throng,  and  in  the  low  mur- 
mur of  his  mother's  name.  The  headsman  had 
a  foitter  part  to  play  that  day,  for  Conradin's 
death  is  one  of  the  world's  tragedies ;  but 
there  are  other  scaffolds  upon  which  we  still 
glance  back  with  a  pity  fresh  enough  for  pain. 
When  Count  Egmont  and  Admiral  Horn  were 
beheaded  in  the  great  square  of  Brussels, 
the  executioner  wisely  hid  beneath  the  black 
draperies  until  it  was  time  for  him  to  do  his 
work.  He  had  no  wish  to  parade  himself  as 
part  of  that  sad  show. 

In  England  the  rules  of  etiquette  were 
never  more  binding  than  upon  those  who  were 
about  to  be  beheaded.  When  the  Duke  of 
Hamilton,  the  Earl  of  Holland,  and  Lord 
Capel  went  to  the  block  together,  they  were 


THE   HEADSMAN  211 

told  they  must  die  in  the  order  of  their  rank, 
as  though  they  were  going  in  to  dinner ;  and 
upon  Lord  Capel's  offering  to  address  the 
crowd  without  removing  his  hat,  it  was  ex- 
plained to  him  that  this  was  incorrect.  The 
scaffold  was  not  the  House  of  Parliament,  and 
those  who  graced  it  were  expected  to  uncover. 
On  a  later  and  very  memorable  occasion,  the 
Earl  of  Kilmarnock,  "  with  a  most  just  mixture 
of  dignity  and  submission,"  offered  the  melan- 
choly precedence  to  Lord  Balmerino.  That 
gallant  soldier  —  "a  natural,  brave  old  gentle- 
man," says  Horace  Walpole,  though  he  was  but 
fifty-eight  —  would  have  mounted  first,  but  the 
headsman  interfered.  Even  upon  the  scaffold, 
a  belted  earl  enjoyed  the  privileges  of  his  rank. 
All  this  formality  must  have  damped  the 
spirits  of  the  condemned ;  but  it  seems  to  have 
been  borne  with  admirable  gayety  and  good 
temper.  Lord  Balmerino,  "decently  unmoved," 
was  ready  to  die  first  or  last,  and  he  gave  the 
punctilious  executioner  three  guineas,  to  prove 
that  he  was  not  impatient.  "  He  looked  quite 
unconcerned,"  says  an  eye-witness,  "  and  like 
some  one  going  on  a  party  of  pleasure,  or  upon 


212  COMPROMISES 

t 

some  business  of  little  or  no  importance."  Lord 
Lovat,  beheaded  at  eighty  for  his  active  share 
in  the  Jacobite  rising  of  'forty-five,  derived 
much  amusement  from  the  vast  concourse  of 
people  assembled  to  witness  his  execution  ;  — 
an  amusement  agreeably  intensified  by  the 
giving  way  of  some  scaffolding,  which  occa- 
sioned the  unexpected  death  of  several  eager 
sight-seers.  "  The  more  mischief,  the  better 
sport,"  said  the  old  lord  grimly,  and  proceeded 
to  quote  Ovid  and  Horace  with  fine  scholarly 
zest.  If  the  executioner  were  seldom  a  person 
of  education,  it  was  from  no  lack  of  oppor- 
tunity. He  might,  had  he  chosen,  have  learned 
at  his  post  much  law  and  more  theology.  When 
Archbishop  Laud  stood  waiting  by  the  block, 
Sir  John  Clotworthy  conceived  it  to  be  a  sea- 
sonable occasion  for  propounding  some  knotty 
points  of  doctrine.  The  prelate  courteously 
answered  one  or  two  questions,  but  time  pressed, 
and  controversy  had  lost  its  charms.  Even  so 
good  a  churchman  may  be  pardoned  for  turn- 
ing wearily  away  from  polemics,  when  his  life's 
span  had  narrowed  down  to  minutes,  and  the 
headsman  waited  by  his  side. 


THE  HEADSMAN  213 

In  the  burial  registry  of  Whitechapel,  under 
the  year  1649,  is  the  following  entry :  — 

"  June  21st,  Richard  Brandon,  a  man  out 
of  Rosemary  Lane.  This  Brandon  is  held  to 
be  the  man  who  beheaded  Charles  the  First." 

"  Held  to  be  "  only,  for  the  mystery  of  the 
King's  executioner  was  one  which  long  excited 
and  baffled  curiosity.  Wild  whispers  credited 
the  deed  to  men  of  rank  and  station,  among 
them  Viscount  Stair,  the  type  of  strategist  to 
whom  all  manner  of  odium  naturally  and  rea- 
sonably clings.  A  less  distinguished  candidate 
for  the  infamy  was  one  William  Hewlett, 
actually  condemned  to  death  after  the  Restora- 
tion for  a  part  he  never  played,  and  saved  from 
the  gallows  only  by  the  urgent  efforts  of  a  few 
citizens  who  swore  that  Brandon  did  the  deed. 
Brandon  was  not  available  for  retribution.  He 
had  died  in  his  bed,  five  months  after  Charles 
was  beheaded,  and  had  been  hurried  ignomini- 
ously  into  his  grave  in  Whitechapel  church- 
yard. As  public  executioner  of  London,  he 
could  hardly  escape  his  destiny ;  but  it  is  said 
that  remorse  and  horror  shortened  his  life.  In 
his  supposed  "  Confession,"  a  tract  widely  cir- 


214  COMPROMISES 

culated  at  the  time,  he  claimed  that  he  was 
"  fetched  out  of  bed  by  a  troup  of  horse,"  and 
carried  against  his  will  to  the  scaffold.  Also 
that  he  was  paid  thirty  pounds,  all  in  half- 
crowns,  for  the  work;  and  had  "an  orange 
stuck  full  of  cloves,  and  a  handkerchief  out 
of  the  King's  pocket."  The  orange  he  sold  for 
ten  shillings  in  Rosemary  Lane. 

The  shadow  that  falls  across  the  headsman's 
path  deepens  in  horror  when  we  contemplate 
the  scaffolds  of  Charles,  of  Louis,  of  Marie 
Antoinette,  and  of  Mary  Stuart.  The  hand 
that  has  shed  royal  blood  is  stained  forever,  yet 
the  very  magnitude  of  the  offence  lends  to  it  a 
painful  and  terrible  distinction.  It  is  the  zenith 
as  well  as  the  nadir  of  the  headsman's  history ; 
it  is  the  corner-stone  of  the  impassable  barrier 
which  divides  the  axe  and  the  sword  from  the 
hangman's  noose,  the  death  of  Straff ord  from 
the  death  of  Jonathan  Wild. 

If  we  turn  the  page,  and  look  for  a  moment 
at  the  "  gallows  tree,"  we  find  that  it  has  its 
romantic  and  its  comic  side,  but  the  comedy  is 
boisterous,  the  romance  savours  of  melodrama. 
For  centuries  one  of  the  recognized  amuse- 


THE   HEADSMAN  215 

ments  of  the  English  people  was  to  see  men 
hanged,  and  the  leading  features  of  the  enter- 
tainment were  modified  from  time  to  time  to 
please  a  popular  taste.  Dr.  Johnson,  the  sanest 
as  well  as  the  best  man  of  his  day,  highly 
commended  these  public  executions  as  "  satis- 
factory to  all  parties.  The  public  is  gratified 
by  a  procession,  the  criminal  is  supported  by 
it."  That  the  enjoyment  was  often  mutual,  it 
is  impossible  to  deny.  There  was  a  world  of 
meaning  in  the  gentle  custom,  supported  for 
years  by  a  very  ancient  benefaction,  of  giving 
a  nosegay  to  the  condemned  man  on  his  way 
to  Tyburn.  Before  the  cart  climbed  Holborn 
Hill,  — "  the  heavy  hill "  as  it  was  called, 
with  a  touch  of  poetry  rivalling  the  "  Bridge 
of  Sighs,"  —  it  stopped  at  Saint  Sepulchre's 
church,  and  on  the  church  steps  stood  one 
bearing  in  his  hands  the  flowers  that  were  to 
yield  their  fresh  fragrance  to  the  dying.  Nor 
were  the  candidates  without  their  modest  pride. 
When  the  noted  chimney-sweep,  Sam  Hall, 
achieved  the  honour  of  a  hanging,  he  was 
rudely  jostled,  and  bidden  to  stand  off  by  a 
highwayman,  stepping  haughtily  into  the  cart, 


216  COMPROMISES 

and  annoyed  at  finding  himself  in  such  low 
company.  "  Stand  off,  yourself  !  "  was  the  in- 
dignant answer  of  the  young  sweep.  "  I  have 
as  good  a  right  to  be  here  as  you  have." 

"  Nothing,"  says  Voltaire,  "  is  so  disagree- 
able as  to  be  obscurely  hanged,"  and  the  lone- 
liness which  in  this  moral  age  encompasses 
the  felon's  last  hours  should  be  as  salutary 
as  it  is  depressing.  Mr.  Housman,  who  gets 
closer  to  the  plain  thoughts  of  plain  men  than 
any  poet  of  modern  times,  has  given  stern 
expression  to  the  awful  aloofness  of  the  con- 
demned criminal  from  his  fellow  creatures,  an 
aloofness  unknown  in  the  cheerful,  brutal  days 
of  old. 

They  hang  us  now  in  Shrewsbury  jail : 

The  whistles  blow  forlorn, 
And  trains  all  night  groan  on  the  rail 

To  men  who  die  at  morn. 

The  sociability  of  Tyburn,  if  somewhat 
vehement  in  character,  was  a  jocund  thing  by 
the  side  of  such  solitude  as  this. 

Parish  registers  make  curious  reading. 
They  tell  so  much  in  words  so  scant  and  bald 
that  they  set  us  wondering  on  our  own  ac- 


THE  HEADSMAN  217 

counts  over  the  unknown  details  of  tragedies 
which  even  in  their  day  won  no  wide  hearing, 
and  which  have  been  wholly  forgotten  for  cen- 
turies. Mr.  Lang  quotes  two  entries  that  are 
briefly  comprehensive ;  the  first  from  the  reg- 
ister of  Saint  Nicholas,  Durham,  August  8, 
1592 :  "  Simson,  Arington,  Featherston,  Fen- 
wick,  and  Lancaster,  were  hanged  for  being 
Egyptians." 

Featherston  and  Fenwick  might  have  been 
hanged  on  the  evidence  of  their  names,  good 
gypsy  names  both  of  them,  and  famous  for 
years  in  the  dark  annals  of  the  race ;  but 
were  these  men  guilty  of  no  other  crime,  no 
indiscretion  even,  that  has  escaped  recording  ? 
Five  stalwart  rogues  might  have  served  the 
queen  in  better  fashion  than  by  dangling  idly 
on  a  gallows.  The  second  entry,  from  the  par- 
ish church  of  Richmond  in  Yorkshire,  1558,  is 
still  shorter,  a  model  of  conciseness  :  "  Richard 
SneU  b'rnt,  bur.  9  Sept." 

Was  Snell  a  martyr,  unglorified  by  Fox,  or 
a  particularly  desperate  sinner ;  and  if  a  sin- 
ner, what  was  the  nature  of  his  sin  ?  Warlocks 
were  commonly  hanged  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 


218  COMPROMISES 

tury,  even  when  their  sister  witches  were 
burned.  "  C'est  la  loi  de  rhomme."  In  fact, 
burning  was  an  unusual,  and  —  save  in  Queen 
Mary's  mind  —  an  unpopular  mode  of  punish- 
ment. "  You  are  burnt  for  heresy,"  says  Mr. 
Birrell  with  great  good  humour.  "  That  is 
right  enough.  No  one  would  complain  of  that. 
Hanging  is  a  different  matter.  It  is  very  easy 
to  get  hung ;  but  to  be  burnt  requires  a  com- 
bination of  circumstances  not  always  forth- 
coming." 

Yet  Richard  Snell,  yeoman  of  Yorkshire, 
mastered  these  circumstances ;  and  a  single 
line  in  a  parish  register  is  his  meagre  share  of 
fame. 


CONSECRATED  TO  CRIME 

The  breathless  fellow  at  the  altar-foot, 
Fresh  from  his  murder,  safe  and  sitting  there, 
With  the  little  children  round  him  in  a  row 

Of  admiration. 

—  FBA  LIPPO  LIPPI. 

NOT  long  ago  I  saw  these  lines  quoted  to  show 
the  blessedness  of  sanctuary;  quoted  with  a 
serious  sentimentality  which  left  no  room  for 
their  more  startling  significance.  The  writer 
drew  a  parallel  between  the  ruffian  sheltered  by 
his  church  and  the  soldier  sheltered  by  his 
flag,  forgiven  much  wrong-doing  for  the  sake 
of  the  standard  under  which  he  has  served  and 
suffered.  But  Mr.  Browning's  murderer  has 
not  served  the  church.  He  is  unforgiven,  and, 
let  us  hope,  eventually  hanged.  In  the  inter- 
val, however,  he  poses  as  a  hero  to  the  chil- 
dren, and  as  an  object  of  lively  interest  to  the 
pious  and  Mass-going  Florentines.  A  lean 
monk  praying  on  the  altar  steps  would  have 
awakened  no  sentiment  in  their  hearts;  yet 
even  the  frequency,  the  cheapness  of  crime 


220  COMPROMISES 

failed  to  rob  it  of  its  lustre.  It  was  not  with- 
out reason  that  Plutarch  preferred  to  write  of 
wicked  men.  He  had  the  pardonable  desire 
of  an  author  to  be  read. 

In  these  less  vivid  days  we  are  seldom 
brought  into  such  picturesque  contact  with 
assassins.  The  majesty  of  the  law  is  strenu- 
ously exerted  to  shield  them  from  open  adula- 
tion. We  have  grown  sensitive,  too,  and  prone 
to  consider  our  own  safety,  which  we  call  the 
welfare  of  the  public.  Some  of  us  believe  that 
criminals  are  madmen,  or  sick  men,  who  should 
be  doctored  rather  than  punished.  On  the 
whole,  our  emotions  are  too  complex  for  the 
straightforward  enjoyment  with  which  our  ro- 
bust ancestors  contemplated  —  and  often  com- 
mitted —  deeds  of  violence.  Murder  is  to  us  no 
longer  as 

...  a  dish  of  tea, 
And  treason,  bread  and  butter. 

We  have  ceased  to  stomach  such  sharp  condi- 
ments. 

Yet  something  of  the  old  glamour,  the  gla- 
mour with  which  the  Serpent  beguiled  Eve, 
still  hangs  about  historic  sins,  making  them  — 


CONSECRATED    TO   CRIME  221 

as  Plutarch  knew  —  more  attractive  than  his- 
toric virtues.  Places  consecrated  to  the  mem- 
ory of  crime  have  so  keen  an  interest  that  trav- 
ellers search  for  them  painstakingly,  and  are 
often  both  grieved  and  indignant  because  some 
blood-soaked  hovel  has  not  been  carefully  pre- 
served by  the  ungrateful  community  which 
harboured  —  and  hanged  —  the  wretch  who 
lived  in  it.  I  met  in  Edinburgh  a  disappointed 
tourist,  —  a  woman  and  an  American,  —  who 
had  spent  a  long  day  searching  vainly  for  the 
house  in  which  Burke  and  Hare  committed 
their  ghastly  murders,  and  for  the  still  more 
hideous  habitation  of  Major  Weir  and  his 
sister.  She  had  wandered  for  hours  through 
the  most  offensive  slums  that  Great  Britain 
has  to  show  ;  she  had  seen  and  heard  and  smelt 
everything  that  was  disagreeable ;  she  had 
made  endless  inquiries,  and  had  been  regarded 
as  a  troublesome  lunatic;  and  all  that  she 
might  look  upon  the  dilapidated  walls,  behind 
which  had  been  committed  evils  too  vile  for 
telling.  And  this  in  Edinburgh,  the  city  of 
great  and  sombre  tragedies,  where  Mary  Stuart 
held  her  court,  and  Montrose  rode  to  the  scaf- 


222  COMPROMISES 

fold.  With  so  many  dark  pages  in  her  chron- 
icles, one  has  scant  need  to  burrow  for  ignoble 
guilt. 

There  are  deeds,  however,  that  have  so  col- 
oured history,  stained  it  so  redly  and  so  im- 
perishably,  that  their  seal  is  set  upon  the  abodes 
that  witnessed  them,  and  all  other  associations 
grow  dim  and  trivial  by  comparison.  The 
murder  of  a  Douglas  or  of  a  Guise  by  his 
sovereign  is  the  apotheosis  of  crime,  the  zenith 
of  horror.  As  long  as  the  stones  of  Stirling  or 
of  Blois  shall  hold  together,  that  horror  shall  be 
their  dower.  The  walls  shriek  their  tale.  They 
make  a  splendid  and  harmonious  background 
for  the  tragedy  that  gives  them  life.  They  are 
fitting  guardians  of  their  fame.  It  can  never 
be  sufficiently  regretted  that  the  murder  of 
Darnley  had  so  mean  a  setting,  and  that  the 
methods  employed  by  the  murderers  have  left 
us  little  even  of  that  meanness.  Some  bleak 
fortress  in  the  north  should  have  sheltered 
a  crime  so  long  impending,  and  so  grimly 
wrought ;  but  perhaps  the  paltriness  of  the 
victim  merited  no  better  mise  en  scene.  The 
Douglas  and  the  Guise  were  made  of  sterner 


CONSECRATED    TO   CRIME  223 

stuff,  and  the  world  —  the  tourist  world  — 
pays  in  its  vapouring  fashion  a  tribute  to  their 
strength.  It  buys  pathetically  incongruous  sou- 
venirs of  the  "  Douglas  room  ;  "  and  it  traces 
every  step  by  which  the  great  Duke,  the  head 
and  the  heart  of  the  League,  went  scornfully 
to  his  death. 

Blois  has  associations  that  are  not  murder- 
ous. It  saw  the  solemn  consecration  of  the 
standard  of  Joan  of  Arc,  and  the  splendid  feasts 
which  celebrated  the  auspicious  betrothal  of 
Henry  of  Navarre  to  his  Valois  bride.  The 
statue  of  Louis  the  Twelfth,  "  Father  of  his  peo- 
ple," sits  stiffly  astride  of  its  caparisoned  charger 
above  the  entrance  gate.  But  it  is  not  upon 
Joan,  nor  upon  Navarre,  nor  upon  good  King 
Louis  that  the  traveller  wastes  a  thought.  The 
ghosts  that  dominate  the  chateau  are  those  of 
Catherine  de  Medici,  of  her  son,  wanton  in 
wickedness,  and  of  the  murdered  Guise.  Castle 
guides  are  notoriously  short  of  speech,  sparing 
of  time,  models  of  bored  indifference.  But  the 
guardian  of  Blois  waxes  eloquent  over  the  tale 
he  has  to  tell,  and,  with  the  dramatic  instinct 
of  his  race,  strives  to  put  its  details  vividly 


224  COMPROMISES 

before  our  eyes.  He  assigns  to  each  assassin 
,his  post,  shows  where  the  wretched  young  king 
concealed  himself  until  the  deed  was  done,  and 
points  out  the  exact  spot  in  the  Cabinet  Vieux 
where  the  first  blow  was  struck.  "  Behold  the 
perfect  tableau  !  "  he  winds  up  enthusiastically, 
and  we  are  forced  to  admit  that,  as  a  tableau, 
it  lacks  no  element  of  success.  Mr.  Henry 
James's  somewhat  cynical  appreciation  of  this 
"  perfect  episode  "  —  perfect,  from  the  dram- 
atist's point  of  view  —  recurs  inevitably  to  our 
minds :  — 

"  The  picture  is  full  of  light  and  darkness, 
full  of  movement,  full  altogether  of  abomina- 
tions. Mixed  up  with  them  all  is  the  great 
theological  motive,  so  that  the  drama  wants 
little  to  make  it  complete.  The  insolent  pro- 
sperity of  the  victim  ;  the  weakness,  the  vices, 
the  terrors  of  the  author  of  the  deed;  the 
admirable  execution  of  the  plot ;  the  accumula- 
tion of  horror  in  what  followed,  —  render  it, 
as  a  crime,  one  of  the  classic  things." 

Classic  surely  were  the  repeated  warnings, 
so  determinedly  ignored.  Caesar  was  not  more 
plainly  cautioned  of  his  danger  than  was  the 


CONSECRATED    TO    CRIME  225 

Duke  of  Guise.  Caesar  was  not  more  resolved 
to  live  his  life  fearlessly,  or  to  die.  Caesar  was 
not  harder  to  kill.  It  takes  many  a  dagger 
stroke  to  release  a  strong  spirit  from  its 
clay. 

There  were  dismal  prophecies  months  ahead, 
advance  couriers  of  the  slowly  maturing  plot. 
"  Before  the  year  dies,  you  shall  die,"  was  the 
message  sent  to  the  Duke  when  the  States-Gen- 
eral were  summoned  to  Blois.  His  mother, 
ceaselessly  apprehensive,  his  mistress,  Charlotte 
de  Sauves,  besought  him  to  leave  the  chateau. 
Nine  ominous  notes,  crumpled  bits  of  paper, 
each  written  at  the  peril  of  a  life,  admonished 
him  of  his  fate.  The  ninth  was  thrust  into  his 
hand  as  he  made  his  way  for  the  last  time  to 
the  council  chamber.  "  Le  del  sombre  et 
triste  "  frowned  forebodingly  upon  him  as  he 
crossed  the  terrace,  and  La  Salle  and  D'Auber- 
court  strove  even  then  to  turn  him  back.  At 
the  foot  of  the  beautiful  spiral  staircase  sat  the 
jester,  Chicot,  singing  softly  under  his  breath 
a  final  word  of  warning,  "  He,  fay  Guise."  He 
dared  no  more,  and  he  dared  that  much  in 
vain.  The  Duke  passed  him  disdainfully,  and 


226  COMPROMISES 

—  smitten  by  the  gods  with  madness  —  went 
lightly  up  the  steps  to  meet  his  doom. 

This  is  the  story  that  Blois  has  to  tell,  and 
she  tells  it  with  terrible  distinctness.  She  is  so 
steeped  in  blood,  so  shadowed  by  the  memory 
of  her  crime,  that  there  is  scant  need  for  her 
guides  to  play  their  official  parts,  nor  for  her 
museum  walls  to  be  hung  round  with  feeble  re- 
presentations of  the  tragedy.  But  it  is  strange, 
after  all,  that  the  beautiful  home  of  Francis  the 
First  should  not  speak  to  us  more  audibly  of 
him.  He  built  its  right  wing,  "  the  most  joyous 
utterance  of  the  French  Renaissance."  He 
stamped  his  own  exuberant  gayety  upon  every 
detail.  His  salamander  curls  its  carven  tail  over 
stairs  and  doors  and  window  sills.  He  is  surely 
a  figure  striking  enough,  and  familiar  enough  to 
enchain  attention.  Why  do  we  not  think  about 
him,  and  about  those  ladies  of  "  mutable  con- 
nections "  whose  names  echo  buoyantly  from  his 
little  page  of  history  ?  Why  do  our  minds  turn 
obstinately  to  the  Cabinet  Yieux,  or  to  those 
still  more  mirthless  rooms  above  where  Cath- 
erine de  Medici  lived  and  died.  "  11  y  a  de 
mechanics  qualites  qui  font  de  grandes  tal- 


CONSECRATED    TO    CRIME  227 

ents"  but  these  qualities  were  noticeably  lack- 
ing in  the  Queen  Mother.  It  is  not  the  good 
she  tried  and  failed  to  do,  but  the  evil  that  she 
wrought  which  gives  her  a  claim  to  our  magnet- 
ized interest  and  regard. 

To  the  tolerant  observer  it  seems  a  work  of 
supererogation,  a  gilding  of  refined  gold,  to  add 
to  the  sins  of  really  accomplished  sinners  like 
Catherine  and  Louis  the  Eleventh.  These 
sombre  souls  have  left  scant  space  for  our  riot- 
ous imaginations  to  fill  in.  Their  known  deeds 
are  terrible  enough  to  make  us  quail.  It  might 
be  more  profitable  —  as  it  is  certainly  more  irk- 
some —  to  search  for  their  redeeming  traits : 
the  tact,  the  mental  vigour  of  the  queen, 
and  the  efforts  she  made  to  bind  together  the 
distracted  factions  of  France ;  the  courage, 
sagacity,  and  unflinching  resolution  with  which 
Louis  strengthened  his  kingdom,  and  protected 
those  whose  mean  estate  made  them  wholly  unin- 
teresting to  nobler  monarchs.  These  things  are 
worth  consideration,  but  far  be  it  from  us  to 
consider  them.  High  lights  and  heavy  shadows 
please  us  best ;  and  by  this  time  the  shadows 
have  been  so  well  inked  that  their  blackness  is 


228  COMPROMISES 

impenetrable.  It  can  never  be  said  of  Cath- 
erine de  Medici,  as  it  is  said  of  Mary  Stuart, 
that  she  has  been  injured  by  the  zeal  of  her 
friends,  and  helped  by  the  falsehoods  of  her 
enemies.  Catherine  has  few  friends,  and  none 
whose  enthusiasm  is  burdensome  to  bear.  She 
has  furnished  easily-used  material  for  writers 
of  romance,  who  commonly  represent  her  as 
depopulating  France  with  poisoned  gloves  and 
perfumery ;  and  she  has  served  as  a  target  — 
too  big  to  be  missed  —  for  tyros  in  historical 
invective.  We  have  come  to  regard  her  in  a 
large,  loose,  picturesque  way  as  an  embodiment 
of  evil,  —  very  much,  perhaps,  as  Mr.  John 
Addington  Symonds  regards  Clytemnestra,  — 
fed  and  nourished  by  her  sins,  waxing  fat  upon 
iniquity,  and  destitute  alike  of  conscience  and 
of  shame.  And  this  is  the  reason  that  women 
who  have  spent  their  lives  in  the  practice  of 
laborious  virtues  stand  fluttering  with  delight 
in  that  dark  Medicean  bedchamber.  "  Blois  is 
the  most  interesting  of  all  the  chateaux,"  said 
one  of  them  to  me ;  —  she  looked  as  if  she 
could  not  even  tell  a  lie  ;  —  "  you  see  the  very 
bed  in  which  Catherine  de  Medici  died."  And 


CONSECRATED    TO   CRIME  229 

I  thought  of  the  Florentine  children  at  the 
altar  steps. 

Mr.  Andrew  Lang  is  of  the  opinion  that  if 
an  historical  event  could  be  discredited,  like  a 
ghost  story,  by  discrepancies  in  the  evidence, 
we  might  maintain  that  Darnley  was  never  mur- 
dered at  all.  We  might  also  be  led  to  doubt 
the  existence  of  Cardinal  Balue's  cage,  that 
ingenious  torture-chamber  which  has  added  so 
largely  and  so  deservedly  to  the  reputation 
of  Louis  the  Eleventh.  There  is  a  drawing 
of  the  cage,  or  rather  of  a  cage,  still  to  be 
seen,  and  there  is  the  bill  for  its  making;  — 
what  a  prop  to  history  are  well-kept  household 
accounts !  —  while,  on  the  other  hand,  its  ubi- 
quitous nature  staggers  our  trusting  faith. 
Loches  claims  it  as  one  of  her  traditions,  and 
so  does  Plessis-les-Tours.  Loches  is  so  rich  in 
horrors  that  she  can  afford  to  dispense  with 
a  few ,'  but  the  cage,  if  it  ever  existed  at  all, 
was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  permanent  decora- 
tions of  her  tower.  The  room  in  which  it  hung 
is  cheerful  and  commodious  when  compared  to 
the  black  prison  of  Saint  Valier,  or  to  the  still 
deeper  dungeon  of  the  Bishops  of  Puy  and 


230  COMPROMISES 

Autun.  The  cardinal  could  at  least  see  and  be 
seen,  if  that  were  any  amelioration  of  his  lot, 
and  we  are  still  shown  the  turret  stairs  down 
which  the  king  stepped  warily  when  he  came 
to  visit  his  prisoner. 

But  Plessis-les-Tours  covets  the  distinction 
of  the  cage.  She  is  not  without  some  dismal 
memories  of  her  own,  though  she  looks  like  a 
dismantled  factory,  and  she  strives  with  par- 
donable ambition  to  make  them  dismaler.  The 
energetic  and  intelligent  woman  who  conducts 
visitors  around  her  mouldering  walls  has,  in  a 
splendid  spirit  of  assurance,  selected  for  this 
purpose  a  small  dilapidated  cellar,  open  to  the 
sky,  and  a  small  dilapidated  flight  of  steps,  not 
more  than  seven  in  number.  Beneath  these 
steps  —  where  a  terrier  might  perhaps  curl 
himself  in  comfort  —  she  assured  us  with  an 
unflinching  front  the  cardinal's  cage  was  tucked ; 
and  reading  the  doubt  in  our  veiled  eyes,  she 
stooped  and  pointed  out  a  rusty  bit  of  iron 
riveted  in  the  wall.  "  See,"  she  said  triumph- 
antly, "  there  still  remains  one  of  the  fastenings 
of  the  cage."  The  argument  was  irresistible : 

Behold  this  Walrus  tooth. 


CONSECRATED    TO   CRIME  231 

The  fact  is  that  it  has  been  found  necessary 
to  exert  a  great  deal  of  ingenuity  in  order  to 
meet  the  popular  demand  for  cold-blooded 
cruelty  where  Louis  the  Eleventh  is  concerned. 
He  is  an  historic  bugbear,  a  hobgoblin,  at 
whose  grim  ghost  we  grown-up  children  like  to 
shudder  apprehensively.  Scott,  with  a  toler- 
ance as  wide  as  Shakespeare's  own,  has  dared 
to  give  a  finer  colour  to  the  picture,  has  dared 
to  engage  our  sympathy  for  this  implacable  old 
man  who  knew  how  to  "  hate  and  wait,"  how 
to  lie  in  ambush,  and  how  to  drive  relentlessly 
to  his  goal.  But  even  Scott  has  been  unable  to 
subdue  our  cherished  antipathy,  or  to  modify 
the  deep  prejudices  instilled  early  into  our 
minds.  Mr.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  of 
all  writers  has  least  patience  with  schoolbook 
verdicts,  hits  hard  at  our  narrow  fidelity  to 
censorship.  "It  is  probably  more  instructive," 
he  says,  "  to  entertain  a  sneaking  kindness  for 
any  unpopular  person  than  to  give  way  to 
perfect  raptures  of  moral  indignation  against 
his  abstract  vices." 

Now  a  more  unpopular,  a  more  comprehen- 
sively unlovable  person  than  Louis  it  would  be 


232  COMPROMISES 

hard  to  find.  He  did  much  for  France,  yet 
France  drew  a  deep  breath  of  relief  when  he 
died. 

II  n'est  pas  sire  de  son  pays, 
Quy  de  son  peple  n'est  pas  amez. 

Those  who  fail  to  entertain  the  "sneaking 
kindness  "  recommended  by  Mr.  Stevenson  may 
shelter  themselves  behind  this  ancient  couplet. 
"  Of  him  there  is  an  end.  God  pardon  him  his 
sins,"  is  Froissart's  fashion  of  summing  up 
every  man's  career.  It  will  serve  as  well  for 
Louis  as  for  another. 

But  to  gratify  at  once  our  prejudices  and 
our  emotions,  a  generous  mass  of  legend  has 
been  added  to  the  chronicles  of  Loches,  Blois, 
Amboise,  and  other  castles  that  are  consecrated 
to  the  crimes  of  kings.  History,  though  flex- 
ible and  complaisant  up  to  a  certain  point,  has 
her  limits  of  accommodation.  She  has  also  her 
cold  white  lights,  and  her  disconcerting  truths, 
so  annoying,  and  so  invariably  ill-timed  in  their 
revelations.  We  can  never  be  quite  sure  that 
History,  however  obliging  she  seems,  will  not 
suddenly  desert  our  rightful  cause,  and  go  over 
to  our  opponents.  We  have  but  to  remember 


CONSECRATED    TO   CRIME  233 

what  trouble  she  has  given,  and  in  what  an  in- 
vidious, not  to  say  churlish  spirit  she  has  con- 
tradicted the  most  masterly  historians.  It  is 
best  to  ignore  her  altogether,  and  to  tell  our 
stories  without  any  reference  to  her  signature. 

So  thought  the  sensible  young  woman  who 
led  us  captive  through  the  collegiate  church 
at  Loches,  and  who  insisted  upon  our  descend- 
ing into  the  crypt,  at  one  time  connected  with 
the  fortress  by  a  subterranean  gallery.  Its 
dim  walls  are  decorated  here  and  there  with 
mural  paintings,  rude  and  half  effaced.  She 
pointed  out  the  shadowy  outline  of  a  saint  in 
cope  and  mitre,  his  stiff  forefinger  raised  in 
benediction.  "That,"  she  said  with  startling 
composure,  "  is  the  bishop  who  was  the  confessor 
of  Louis  the  Eleventh.  The  king  had  him 
buried  alive  in  this  chapel,  so  that  he  might 
not  betray  the  secrets  of  his  confession." 

"  And  did  the  king  have  him  painted  on  the 
wall  afterwards,  to  commemorate  the  circum- 
stance?" asked  the  scoffer  of  the  party,  at 
whom  others  gazed  reproachfully,  while  I  won- 
dered how  the  story  of  Saint  John  of  Nepo- 
muk  had  travelled  so  far  afield,  and  why  it  had 


234  COMPROMISES 

been  so  absurdly  reset  to  add  another  shade  to 
Louis's  memory.  It  hardly  seemed  worth  while, 
in  view  of  the  legitimate  darkness  of  the  hori- 
zon. It  even  seemed  a  pity.  It  forced  a  laugh, 
and  laughter  is  inharmonious  beneath  the  walls 
of  Loches.  But  if  the  king,  whose  piety  was  of 
a  vigorous  and  active  order,  had  the  habit 
of  walling  up  his  confessors,  there  must  have 
been  some  rational  hesitation  on  the  part  of 
even  the  most  devoted  clerics  when  his  Majesty 
sought  to  be  shriven ;  and  the  stress  of  royal 
conscientiousness  —  combined  with  royal  appre- 
hension —  must  have  shortened  the  somewhat 
hazardous  road  to  church  preferment.  The  fact 
that  Louis  never  wasted  his  cruelties,  that  they 
were  one  and  all  the  fruits  of  deep  and  secret 
hostility,  might  have  saved  him  from  being  the 
hero  of  such  fantastic  myths. 

It  was  more  amusing  to  visit  the  picturesque 
old  house  in  Tours,  known  as  le  Maison  de 
Tristan  1'Ermite.  How  it  came  to  be  asso- 
ciated with  that  melancholy  and  industrious 
hangman,  who  had  been  dead  half  a  century 
when  its  first  stone  was  laid,  has  never  been 
made  clear ;  unless,  indeed,  the  familiar  device 


CONSECRATED    TO   CRIME  235 

of  the  festooned  cord,  the  emblem  of  Anne  de 
Bretagne,  which  is  carved  over  door  and  win- 
dows, may  be  held  responsible  for  the  sugges- 
tion. Once  christened,  however,  it  has  become 
a  centre  of  finely  imaginative  romance,  —  ro- 
mance of  a  high  order,  which  for  finish  of 
detail  may  be  recommended  to  the  careless 
purveyors  of  historic  fiction.  Passing  through 
the  heavy  doorway  into  a  beautiful  sombre 
courtyard,  we  had  hardly  time  to  admire  its 
proportions,  and  the  curious  little  stone  beasts 
which  wanton  wickedly  in  dark  corners,  before 
a  gaunt  woman,  who  is  the  guardian  spirit  of 
the  place,  summoned  us  to  ascend  an  intermin- 
able flight  of  steps,  much  worn  and  dimly  lit. 
They  had  an  ominous  look,  and  the  woman's 
air  of  mystery,  subtly  blent  with  resolution,  was 
in  admirable  accord  with  her  surroundings. 
From  time  to  time  she  paused  to  point  out  a 
shallow  niche  which  had  formerly  held  a  lamp, 
or  a  broken  place  in  the  wall's  rough  masonry. 
"  L' oubliette  "  she  whispered  grimly,  pointing 
to  the  hole  which  revealed  —  and  gainsaid  — 
nothing.  There  was  a  small  walled-up  door, 
equally  reserved,  which  she  said  was,  or  had 


236  COMPROMISES 

been,  the  opening  of  a  secret  passage  connect- 
ing the  house  with  the  chateau  of  Plessis-les- 
Tours,  more  than  two  miles  away.  The  full 
significance  of  this  remark  failed  to  dawn 
upon  us  until  we  had  climbed  up,  up,  up,  and 
emerged  at  last  upon  a  narrow  balcony  over- 
looking the  sad  courtyard  far  below,  and  pro- 
tected by  a  heavy  iron  railing.  It  was  a  dis- 
agreeable place,  not  without  its  suggestions  of 
horror ;  yet  were  we  in  no  wise  prepared  for 
the  recital  that  followed.  From  this  railing, 
said  our  guide,  Tristan  FErmite  was  in  the 
habit  of  hanging  the  victims  whom  Louis  the 
Eleventh,  "  that  great  and  prompt  chastener," 
confided  to  his  mercy.  I  could  not  help  mur- 
muring at  the  cruelty  which  compelled  the  un- 
fortunates to  mount  nearly  two  hundred  steps 
to  be  hanged,  when  the  courtyard  beneath 
offered  every  reasonable  accommodation ;  but, 
even  as  I  spoke,  I  recognized  the  poverty  of 
imagination  which  could  prompt  such  a  stupid 
speech.  Perhaps  some  direful  memory  of  the 
Balcon  des  Conjures  at  Amboise  may  be  held 
responsible  for  the  web  of  fiction  which  has 
been  woven  about  this  grim  eyrie  of  Tours ; 


CONSECRATED    TO    CRIME  237 

and  if  the  picture  lacks  the  magnificent  set- 
ting of  the  Amboise  tragedy,  it  is  by  no  means 
destitute  of  power.  There  is  a  certain  grandeur 
in  being  hanged  from  such  a  dizzy  height. 

Our  guide  next  pointed  out  the  opening  of 
the  mythical  oubliette.  If  the  condemned  toiled 
wearily  up  to  their  beetling  scaffold,  the  exe- 
cutioners were  spared  at  least  the  labour  of 
carrying  their  bodies  down  again.  After  they 
had  been  picturesquely  hanged  under  the  king's 
own  eye,  —  for  we  were  asked  to  believe  that 
Louis  walked  two  miles  along  a  subterranean 
passage  to  inspect  the  ordinary,  and  by  no 
means  infrequent,  processes  of  justice,  —  the 
corpses  were  tumbled  into  the  oubliette,  and 
made  their  own  headlong  way  to  the  Loire. 

One  more  detail  was  added  to  this  interesting 
and  deeply  coloured  fable.  The  right-hand  wall 
of  the  courtyard  was  studded,  on  a  level  with 
the  balcony,  with  huge  rusty  iron  nails.  There 
were  rows  upon  rows  of  these  unlovely  and 
apparently  useless  objects  which  tradition  had 
not  failed  to  turn  to  good  account.  For  every 
man  hanged  on  that  spot  by  the  indefatigable 
Tristan,  a  nail  was,  it  seems,  driven  into  the 


238  COMPROMISES 

wall,  which  thus  became  a  sort  of  baker's  tally 
or  tavern  slate.  We  counted  forty-four  nails. 
The  woman  nodded  her  head  with  serious 
satisfaction.  Frequent  repetitions  of  her  story 
had  brought  her  almost  to  the  point  of  believ- 
ing it.  She  had  ministered  so  long  to  the  tastes 
of  tourists  —  who  like  to  think  that  Louis 
hanged  his  subjects  as  liberally  as  Catherine 
de  Medici  poisoned  hers  —  that  she  had 
gradually  moulded  her  narrative  into  symmetry, 
making  use  of  every  available  feature  to  give 
it  consistency  and  grace.  The  fine  old  house 
—  which  may  have  harboured  tragedies  of  its 
own  as  sombre  as  any  wrought  by  Tristan's 
hand  —  lent  itself  with  true  architectural  sym- 
pathy to  the  illusion.  Some  habitations  can  do 
this  thing,  can  look  to  perfection  the  parts  as- 
signed them  by  history  or  by  tradition.  Who 
that  has  ever  seen  the  "  Jew's  House  "  at  Lin- 
coln can  forget  the  peculiar  horror  that  broods 
over  the  dark,  ill-omened  doorway  ?  The  place 
is  peopled  by  ghosts.  Beneath  its  heavy  lintel 
pass  little  trembling  feet.  From  out  the  shad- 
ows comes  a  strangled  cry.  It  tells  its  tale 
better  than  Chaucer  or  the  balladists ;  with 


CONSECRATED    TO    CRIME  239 

less  pity  and  more  fear,  less  detail  and  more 
suggestiveness.  We  shudder  as  we  peer  into 
its  gloom,  yet  we  linger,  magnetized  by  the 
subtlety  of  association.  It  may  be  innocent, 
—  poor,  huddled  mass  of  stone,  —  but  we  hope 
not.  We  are  like  the  children  at  the  altar-foot, 
spellbound  by  the  vision  of  a  crime. 


ALLEGRA 

A  lovelier  toy  sweet  Nature  never  made ; 
A  serious,  subtle,  wild,  yet  gentle  being ; 
Graceful  without  design,  and  unforeseeing  ; 
With  eyes  —  Oh !  speak  not  of  her  eyes  !  which  seem 
Two  mirrors  of  Italian  heaven. 

IN  these  Wordsworthian  lines  Shelley  describes 
Lord  Byron's  little  daughter,  Allegra,  then 
under  two  years  of  age ;  and  the  word  "  toy  " 
—  so  keenly  suggestive  of  both  the  poetic  and 
the  masculine  point  of  view  —  has  in  this  case 
an  unconscious  and  bitter  significance.  Allegra 
was  a  toy  at  which  rude  hands  plucked  vio- 
lently, until  death  lifted  her  from  their  clutches, 
and  hid  her  away  in  the  safety  and  dignity 
of  the  tomb.  "  She  is  more  fortunate  than  we 
are,"  said  her  father,  with  a  noble  and  rare 
iapse  into  simplicity,  and  the  words  were  sadly 
true.  Never  did  a  little  child  make  a  happier 
escape  from  the  troublesome  burden  of  life. 

In  the  winter  of  1816,  a  handsome,  viva- 
cious, dark-eyed  girl  sought  the  acquaintance 


ALLEGE A  241 

of  Lord  Byron,  and  begged  him  to  use  his 
influence  in  obtaining  for  her  an  engagement 
at  Drury  Lane.  She  was  the  type  of  young 
woman  who  aspires  to  a  career  on  the  stage, 
or  in  any  other  field,  without  regard  to  quali- 
fications, and  without  the  burden  of  study. 
She  wrote  in  her  first  letter  (it  had  many 
successors)  :  "  The  theatre  presents  an  easy 
method  of  independence."  She  objected  vehe- 
mently to  "the  intolerable  drudgery  of  provin- 
cial boards."  She  wanted  to  appear  at  once  in 
London.  And  she  signed  her  name,  "  Clara 
Clairmont,"  which  was  prettily  alliterative,  and 
suited  her  better  than  Jane. 

It  was  an  inauspicious  beginning  of  an  un- 
happy intimacy,  destined  to  bring  nothing  but 
disaster  in  its  train.  Miss  Clairmont's  step- 
father, William  Godwin,  had  confessed,  not 
without  reason,  "  a  feeling  of  incompetence  for 
the  education  of  daughters."  His  own  child, 
Mary,  had  fled  to  Europe  eighteen  months 
before,  with  the  poet  Shelley.  Miss  Clairmont 
accompanied  their  flight ;  and  their  inexplicable 
folly  in  taking  her  with  them  was  punished  — 
as  folly  always  is  —  with  a  relentless  severity 


242  COMPROMISES 

seldom  accorded  to  sin.  To  the  close  of  Shel- 
ley's life,  his  sister-in-law  continued  to  be  a 
source  of  endless  irritation  and  anxiety. 

No  engagement  at  Drury  Lane  was  procur- 
able. Indeed,  Miss  Clairmont  soon  ceased  to 
desire  one.  Her  infatuation  for  Lord  Byron 
drove  all  other  thoughts  and  hopes  and  am- 
bitions from  her  heart.  She  wrote  to  him 
repeatedly,  —  clever,  foolish,  half-mad,  and 
cruelly  long  letters.  She  praised  the  "  wild 
originality  of  his  countenance."  She  sent  him 
her  manuscripts  to  read.  There  is  something 
pathetic  in  Byron's  unheeded  entreaty  that  she 
should  "  write  short."  There  is  something  im- 
measurably painful  in  his  unconcealed  indiffer- 
ence, in  his  undisguised  contempt.  The  glamour 
of  his  fame  as  a  poet  gave  a  compelling  power 
to  that  fatal  beauty  which  was  his  undoing. 
When  we  read  what  men  have  written  about 
Byron's  head ;  when  we  recall  the  rhapsodies 
of  Moore,  the  reluctant  praise  of  Trelawney, 
the  eloquence  of  Coleridge  ;  when  we  remember 
that  Scott  —  the  sanest  man  in  Great  Britain 
—  confessed  ruefully  that  Byron's  face  was  a 
thing  to  dream  of,  we  are  the  less  surprised 


ALLEGE A  243 

that  women  should  have  flung  themselves  at  his 
feet  in  a  frenzy  of  self -surrender,  which  a  cold 
legacy  of  busts  and  portraits  does  little  to  ex- 
plain. Miss  Clairmont  —  to  use  one  of  Profes- 
sor Dowden's  flowers  of  speech  —  "was  lightly 
whirled  out  of  her  regular  orbit."  In  the  spring 
she  travelled  with  Shelley  and  Mary  Godwin  to 
Switzerland,  and  at  Secheron,  a  little  suburb 
of  Geneva,  they  met  Lord  Byron,  who  was  then 
writing  the  splendid  third  canto  of  "  Childe  Har- 
old." His  letter  to  his  sister,  the  Hon.  Augusta 
Leigh,  bears  witness  to  his  annoyance  at  the 
encounter ;  but  the  two  poets  became  for  a  sea- 
son daily  companions,  and,  in  some  sort,  friends. 
Shelley  thought  Byron  "  as  mad  as  the  winds  " 
(an  opinion  which  was  returned  with  interest), 
and  deeply  regretted  his  slavery  "  to  the  vilest 
and  most  vulgar  prejudices ;  "  —  among  them 
a  prejudice  in  favour  of  Christianity,  for  which 
ancient  institution  Byron  always  entertained  a 
profound  though  unfruitful  reverence.  Indeed, 
despite  the  revolutionary  impetus  of  his  verse, 
and  despite  the  fact  that  he  died  for  revolting 
Greece,  the  settled  order  of  things  appealed 
with  force  to  his  eminently  practical  nature. 


244  COMPROMISES 

"  Sanity  and  balance,"  says  Mr.  Morley,  "  mark 
the  foundations  of  his  character.  An  angel  of 
reasonableness  seems  to  watch  over  him,  even 
when  he  comes  most  dangerously  near  to  an 
extravagance." 

Miss  Clairmont  did  not  confide  to  her  guard- 
ians the  secret  of  her  intimacy  with  Lord  By- 
ron until  after  the  meeting  at  Geneva.  When 
her  relations  with  him  were  understood,  neither 
Shelley  nor  Mary  Godwin  saw  at  first  any 
occasion  for  distress.  They  cared  nothing  for 
the  broken  marriage  bond,  and  they  believed,  or 
hoped,  that  some  true  affection  had  been  —  as 
in  their  own  case  —  the  impelling  and  uphold- 
ing power.  It  was  the  swift  withering  of  this 
hope  which  filled  their  hearts  with  apprehen- 
sion. They  carried  Miss  Clairmont  back  to 
England  in  the  autumn  ("  I  have  had  all  the 
plague  possible  to  persuade  her  to  go  back," 
wrote  Byron  to  his  sister)  ;  and  in  Bath,  the 
following  January,  her  little  daughter  was  born. 

It  was  a  blue-eyed  baby  of  exceptional  love- 
liness. Mrs.  Shelley  (Mary  Godwin  had  been 
married  to  the  poet  on  the  death  of  his  wife, 
two  months  earlier)  fills  her  letters  with  praises 


ALLEGE A  245 

of  its  beauty.  Miss  Clairmont  wrote  to  Byron 
in  1820  that  her  health  had  been  injured  by 
her  "  attentions  "  to  her  child  during  its  first 
year ;  but  she  found  time  to  study  Italian,  and 
to  write  a  book,  for  which  Shelley  tried  in  vain 
to  find  a  publisher,  and  the  very  title  of  which 
is  now  forgotten.  The  little  household  at  Great 
Marlow  was  not  a  tranquil  one.  Mrs.  Shelley 
had  grown  weary  of  her  step-sister's  society. 
Her  diary  —  all  these  young  people  kept  dia- 
ries with  uncommendable  industry  —  abounds 
in  notes,  illustrative  of  Claire's  ill-temper,  and 
of  her  own  chronic  irritation.  "  Clara  imagines 
that  I  treat  her  unkindly."  "  Clara  in  an  ill- 
humour."  "  Jane l  gloomy."  "  Jane  for  some 
reason  refuses  to  walk."  "Jane  is  not  well, 
and  does  not  speak  the  whole  day." 

This  was  bad  enough,  but  there  were  other 
moods  more  trying  than  mere  sulkiness.  Miss 
Clairmont  possessed  nerves.  She  had  "  the 
horrors  "  when  "  King  Lear  "  was  read  aloud. 
She  was,  or  professed  to  be,  afraid  of  ghosts. 
She  would  come  downstairs  in  the  middle  of 
the  night  to  tell  Shelley  that  an  invisible 

1  Clara  Mary  Jane  Clairmont  was  "  Claire's  "  full  name. 


246  COMPROMISES 

hand  had  lifted  her  pillow  from  her  bed,  and 
dumped  it  on  a  chair.  To  such  thrilling  re- 
citals the  poet  lent  serious  attention.  "Her 
manner,"  he  wrote  in  his  journal,  "  convinced 
me  that  she  was  not  deceived.  We  continued 
to  sit  by  the  fire,  at  intervals  engaged  in  awful 
conversation,  relative  to  the  nature  of  these 
mysteries ;  "  —  that  is,  to  the  migrations  of  the 
pillow.  As  a  result  of  sympathetic  treatment, 
Claire  would  wind  up  the  night  with  hysterics, 
writhing  in  convulsions  on  the  floor,  and  shriek- 
ing dismally,  until  poor  Mrs.  Shelley  would 
be  summoned  from  a  sick-bed  to  soothe  her 
to  slumber.  "  Give  me  a  garden,  and  absentia 
Claire,  and  I  will  thank  my  love  for  many 
favours,"  is  the  weary  comment  of  the  wife, 
after  months  of  inextinguishable  agitation. 

There  was  no  loophole  of  escape,  however, 
from  a  burden  so  rashly  shouldered.  Miss 
Clairmont  made  one  or  two  ineffectual  efforts 
at  self-support ;  but  found  them  little  to  her 
liking.  She  could  not,  and  she  would  not,  live 
with  her  mother,  Mrs*  Godwin;  —  "a  very 
disgusting  woman,  and  wears  green  specta- 
cles," is  Charles  Lamb's  description  of  this 


ALLEGRA  247 

lady,  whom,  in  common  with  most  of  her 
acquaintances,  he  cordially  disliked.  When 
Byron  wrote,  offering  to  receive  and  provide 
for  his  little  daughter,  Shelley  vehemently  op- 
posed the  plan,  thinking  it  best  that  so  young 
an  infant  should  remain  under  its  mother's 
care.  But  his  wife,  who  was  at  heart  a  singu- 
larly sagacious  woman,  never  ceased  to  urge 
the  advisability  of  the  step.  Claire,  though 
reluctant  to  part  from  her  baby,  yielded  to 
these  persuasions;  and  the  journey  to  Italy 
in  the  spring  of  1818  was  undertaken  mainly 
as  a  sure  though  expensive  method  of  convey- 
ing Allegra  to  her  father. 

That  Byron  wanted  the  child,  there  is  no 
doubt,  nor  that  he  had  been  from  the  first 
deeply  concerned  for  her  uncertain  future. 
Three  months  after  her  birth,  he  wrote  to  his 
sister  that  he  had  resolved  to  send  for  her,  and 
place  her  in  a  convent,  "to  become  a  good 
Catholic,  and  (it  may  be)  a  nun,  —  being  a 
character  somewhat  needed  in  our  family." 
"  They  tell  me,"  he  adds,  "  that  she  is  very 
pretty,  with  blue  eyes  and  dark  hair;  and 
although  I  never  was  attached,  nor  pretended 


248  COMPROMISES 

attachment  to  the  mother,  still,  in  case  of  the 
eternal  war  and  alienation  which  I  foresee 
about  my  legitimate  daughter,  Ada,  it  may  be 
as  well  to  have  something  to  repose  a  hope 
upon.  I  must  love  something  in  my  old  age ; 
and  circumstances  may  render  this  poor  little 
creature  a  great,  and  perhaps  my  only,  comfort." 
It  is  not  often  that  Byron's  letters  reveal 
this  grace  of  sentiment.  Never,  after  Allegra's 
arrival,  does  he  allude  to  any  affection  he  bears 
her,  and  he  once  assured  Moore  that  he  did 
not  bear  any ;  —  a  statement  which  that  par- 
tial biographer  thought  fit  to  disregard.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  dwells  over  and  over  again, 
both  in  his  correspondence  and  in  his  journal, 
upon  plans  for  her  education  and  future  settle- 
ment. He  was  at  all  times  sternly  practical, 
and  pitilessly  clear-sighted.  He  never  regarded 
his  daughter  as  a  "  lovely  toy,"  but  as  a  very 
serious  and  troublesome  responsibility.  The 
poetic  view  of  childhood  failed  to  appeal  to 
him.  "Any  other  father,"  wrote  Claire  bit- 
terly, "  would  have  made  of  her  infancy  a  sweet 
idyl  of  flowers  and  innocent  joy."  Byron  was 
not  idyllic.  He  dosed  Allegra  with  quinine 


ALLEGRA  249 

when  she  had  a  fever.  He  abandoned  a  medi- 
tated journey  because  she  was  ill.  He  dis- 
missed a  servant  who  had  let  her  fall.  He 
added  a  codicil  to  his  will,  bequeathing  her 
five  thousand  pounds.  These  things  GO  not 
indicate  any  stress  of  emotion,  but  the}'  have 
their  place  in  the  ordinary  calendar  of  parental 
cares. 

A  delicate  baby,  not  yet  sixteen  months  old, 
was  a  formidable  and  inharmonious  addition  to 
the  poet's  Venetian  household.  The  Swiss  nurse, 
Elise,  who  had  been  sent  by  the  Shelleys  from 
Milan,  proved  to  be  a  most  incapable  and  un- 
worthy woman,  who  later  on  made  infinite  mis- 
chief by  telling  the  foulest  of  lies.  Byron  was 
sorely  perplexed  by  the  situation:  and  when 
Mrs.  Hoppner,  the  Genevan  wife  of  the  Eng- 
lish consul-general,  offered  to  take  temporary 
charge  of  the  child,  he  gladly  and  gratefully 
consented.  One  difficulty  in  his  path  he  had 
not  failed  to  foresee ;  —  that  Claire,  having  re- 
linquished Allegra  of  her  own  free  will,  would 
quickly  want  her  back  again.  In  fact,  before 
the  end  of  the  summer,  Miss  Clairmont  insisted 
upon  going  to  Venice,  and  poor  Shelley  very 


250  COMPROMISES 

ruefully  and  reluctantly  accompanied  her. 
Byron  received  him  with  genuine  delight,  and, 
in  an  access  of  good  humour,  proposed  lending 
the  party  his  villa  at  Este.  There  Mrs.  Shelley, 
who  had  lost  her  infant  daughter,  might  recover 
from  sorrow  and  fatigue,  and  there  Allegra 
might  spend  some  weeks  under  her  mother's 
care.  The  offer  was  frankly  accepted,  and  the 
two  men  came  once  more  to  an  amicable  under- 
standing. They  were  not  fitted  to  be  friends, 
—  the  gods  had  ruled  a  severance  wide  and 
deep ;  —  but  when  unpricked  by  the  conten- 
tiousness of  other  people,  they  passed  pleasant 
and  profitable  hours  together. 

Meanwhile,  the  poor  little  apple  of  discord 
was  ripening  every  day  into  a  fairer  bloom. 
"  Allegra  has  been  with  me  these  three  months," 
writes  Byron  to  his  sister  in  August.  "  She  is 
very  pretty,  remarkably  intelligent,  and  a  great 
favourite  with  everybody.  .  .  .  She  has  very 
blue  eyes,  a  singular  forehead,  fair  curly  hair, 
and  a  devil  of  a  Spirit,  —  but  that  is  Papa's." 
"  I  have  here  my  natural  daughter,  by  name 
Allegra,"  he  tells  Moore  six  weeks  later.  "  She 
is  a  pretty  little  girl  enough,  and  reckoned  like 


ALLEGRA  251 

Papa."  To  Murray  he  writes  in  the  same  pa- 
ternal strain.  "  My  daughter  Allegra  is  well, 
and  growing  pretty ;  her  hair  is  growing  darker, 
and  her  eyes  are  blue.  Her  temper  and  her 
ways,  Mr.  Hoppner  says,  are  like  mine,  as  well 
as  her  features.  She  will  make,  in  that  case, 
a  manageable  young  lady." 

Other  pens  bear  ready  witness  to  Allegra's 
temper.  Mr.  Jeaffreson,  who  has  written  a 
very  offensive  book  about  Lord  Byron,  takes 
pains  to  tell  us  that  the  poor  child  was  "  greedy, 
passionate,  and,  in  her  fifth  year,  precocious, 
vain  and  saucy."  Mr.  Hoppner,  after  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Countess  Guiccioli's  "  Recollec- 
tions," wrote  an  agitated  letter  to  the  "  Athe- 
na3um,"  assuring  an  indifferent  public  that  he 
had  no  acquaintance  with  the  lady,  and  that  his 
own  respectability  was  untarnished  by  any  in- 
timacy with  the  poet,  of  whose  morals  he  disap- 
proved, and  whose  companionship  he  eschewed, 
save  when  they  rode  together,  —  on  Byron's 
horses.  "  Allegra  was  not  by  any  means  an 
amiable  child,"  he  added  sourly,  "  nor  was  Mrs. 
Hoppner  nor  I  particularly  fond  of  her." 

It  could  hardly  have  been  expected  that  the 


252  COMPROMISES 

daughter  of  Byron  and  Claire  Clairmont  would 
have  been  "  amiable ; "  nor  can  we  wonder 
that  Mr.  Hoppner,  who  had  a  seven-months- 
old  baby  of  his  own,  should  have  failed  to 
wax  enthusiastic  over  another  infant.  But  his 
warm-hearted  wife  did  love  her  little  charge, 
and  grieved  sincerely  when  the  child's  quick 
temper  subsided  into  listlessness  under  the 
fierce  Italian  heat.  "Mon  petit  brille,  et  il 
est  tou jours  gai  et  sautillant,"  she  wrote  pret- 
tily to  the  Shelley s,  after  their  departure  from 
Venice ;  "  et  Allegra,  par  contre,  est  devenue 
tranquille  et  serieuse,  comme  une  petite  vieille, 
ce  que  nous  peine  beaucoup." 

Byron  was  frankly  grateful  to  Mrs.  Hoppner 
for  her  kindness  to  his  daughter ;  and  after  he 
had  carried  the  child  to  Ravenna,  where  the 
colder,  purer  air  brought  back  her  gayety  and 
bloom,  he  wrote  again  and  again  to  her  former 
guardians,  now  thanking  them  for  "a  whole 
treasure  of  toys"  which  they  had  sent,  now 
assuring  them  that  "Allegrina  is  flourishing 
like  a  pomegranate  blossom,"  and  now  reiterat- 
ing the  fact  which  seemed  to  make  most  im- 
pression upon  his  mind,  —  that  she  was  growing 


ALLEGE A  253 

prettier  and  more  obstinate  every  day.  He 
added  many  little  details  about  her  childish 
ailments,  her  drives  with  the  Countess  Guic- 
cioli,  and  her  popularity  in  his  household.  It 
was  to  the  over-indulgence  of  his  servants,  as 
well  as  to  heredity,  that  he  traced  her  high 
temper  and  imperious  will.  He  consulted  Mrs. 
Hoppner  more  than  once  about  Allegra's 
education ;  and  he  poured  into  her  husband's 
ears  his  bitter  resentment  at  Miss  Clairmont's 
pardonable,  but  exasperating  interference. 

For  Claire,  clever  about  most  things,  was 
an  adept  in  the  art  of  provocation.  She  wrote 
him  letters  calculated  to  try  the  patience  of 
a  saint,  and  he  retaliated  by  a  cruel  and  con- 
temptuous silence.  In  vain  Shelley  attempted 
to  play  the  difficult  part  of  peacemaker.  "  I 
wonder,"  he  pleaded,  "  at  your  being  provoked 
by  what  Claire  writes,  though  that  she  should 
write  what  is  provoking  is  very  probable.  You 
are  conscious  of  performing  your  duty  to  Al- 
legra,  and  your  refusal  to  allow  her  to  visit 
Claire  at  this  distance  you  conceive  to  be  part 
of  that  duty.  That  Claire  should  have  wished 
to  see  her  is  natural.  That  her  disappointment 


254  COMPROMISES 

should  vex  her,  and  her  vexation  make  her 
write  absurdly,  is  all  in  the  natural  order  of 
things.  But,  poor  thing,  she  is  very  unhappy 
and  in  bad  health,  and  she  ought  to  be  treated 
with  as  much  indulgence  as  possible.  The 
weak  and  the  foolish  are  in  this  respect  the 
kings,  —  they  can  do  no  wrong." 

Byron  was  less  generous.  The  weak  and 
the  foolish  —  especially  when  their  weakness 
and  folly  took  the  form  of  hysteria  —  irritated 
him  beyond  endurance.  The  penalty  that  an 
hysterical  woman  pays  for  her  self-indulgence 
is  that  no  one  believes  in  the  depth  or  sincerity 
of  her  emotions.  Byron  had  no  pity  for  the 
pain  that  Claire  was  suffering.  She  was  to  him 
simply  a  young  woman  who  never  lost  an  op- 
portunity to  make  a  scene,  and  he  hated  scenes. 
On  one  point  he  was  determined.  Allegra 
should  never  again  be  sent  to  her  mother,  nor 
to  the  Shelleys.  He  had  views  of  his  own  upon 
the  education  of  little  girls,  which  by  no  means 
corresponded  with  theirs. 

"About  Allegra,"  he  writes  to  Mr.  Hopp- 
ner  in  1820,  "I  can  only  say  to  Claire  that  I 
so  totally  disapprove  of  the  mode  of  Children's 


ALLEGRA  255 

treatment  in  their  family,  that  I  should  look 
upon  the  Child  as  going  into  a  hospital.  Is  it 
not  so?  Have  they  reared  one?  Her  health 
has  hitherto  been  excellent,  and  her  temper  not 
bad.  She  is  sometimes  vain  and  obstinate,  but 
always  clean  and  cheerful;  and  as,  in  a  year 
or  two,  I  shall  either  send  her  to  England,  or 
put  her  in  a  Convent  for  education,  these 
defects  will  be  remedied  as  far  as  they  can  in 
human  nature.  But  the  Child  shall  not  quit 
me  again  to  perish  of  Starvation  and  green 
fruit,  or  be  taught  to  believe  that  there  is  no 
Deity.  Whenever  there  is  convenience  of  vicin- 
ity and  access,  her  Mother  can  always  have  her 
with  her;  otherwise  no.  It  was  so  stipulated 
from  the  beginning." 

Five  months  later,  he  reiterates  these  pain- 
fully prosaic  views.  He  has  taken  a  house  in 
the  country,  because  the  air  agrees  better  wjth 
Allegra.  He  has  two  maids  to  attend  her. 
He  is  doing  his  best,  and  he  is  very  angry  at 
Claire's  last  batch  of  letters.  "  Were  it  not  for 
the  poor  little  child's  sake,"  he  writes,  "  I  am 
almost  tempted  to  send  her  back  to  her  atheist- 
ical mother,  but  that  would  be  too  bad.  ...  If 


256  COMPROMISES 

Claire  thinks  that  she  shall  ever  interfere  with 
the  child's  morals  or  education,  she  mistakes  ; 
she  never  shall.  The  girl  shall  be  a  Christian, 
and  a  married  woman,  if  possible." 

On  these  two  points  Byron  had  set  his  heart. 
The  Countess  Guiccioli  —  kindly  creature  — 
assures  us  that  "  his  dearest  paternal  care  was 
the  religious  training  to  be  given  to  his  natural 
daughter,  Allegra ;  "  and  while  the  words  of 
this  sweet  advocate  weigh  little  in  the  scale, 
they  are  in  some  degree  confirmed  by  the  poet's 
conduct  and  correspondence.  When  he  felt 
the  growing  insecurity  of  his  position  in  Ra- 
venna, he  determined  to  place  the  child  at  a 
convent  school  twelve  miles  away,  and  he  ex- 
plained very  clearly  and  concisely  to  all  whom 
it  might  concern  his  reasons  for  the  step.  "  Al- 
legra is  now  four  years  old  complete,"  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  Hoppner  in  April,  1821 ;  "  and  as  she 
is  quite  above  the  control  of  the  servants,  and 
as  a  man  living  without  any  woman  at  the 
head  of  his  house  cannot  much  attend  to  a  nur- 
sery, I  had  no  resource  but  to  place  her  for  a 
time  (at  a  high  pension  too)  in  the  convent  of 
Bagnacavallo  (twelve  miles  off),  where  the  air 


ALLEGRA  257 

is  good,  and  where  she  will,  at  least,  have  her 
learning  advanced,  and  her  morals  and  religion 
inculcated.  I  had  also  another  motive.  Things 
were  and  are  in  such  a  state  here,  that  I  have 
no  reason  to  look  upon  my  own  personal  safety 
as  insurable,  and  thought  the  infant  best  out 
of  harm's  way  for  the  present. 

"  It  is  also  fit  that  I  should  add  that  I  by  no 
means  intended  nor  intend  to  give  a  natural 
child  an  English  education,  because,  with  the 
disadvantages  of  her  birth,  her  after  settlement 
would  be  doubly  difficult.  Abroad,  with  a  fair 
foreign  education,  and  a  portion  of  five  or  six 
thousand  pounds,  she  might  and  may  marry 
very  respectably.  In  England,  such  a  dowry 
would  be  a  pittance,  while  elsewhere  it  is  a 
fortune.  It  is,  besides,  my  wish  that  she  should 
be  a  Roman  Catholic,  a  religion  which  I  look 
upon  as  the  best,  as  it  is  assuredly  the  oldest, 
of  the  various  branches  of  Christianity.  I  have 
now  explained  my  notions  as  to  the  place  where 
she  is.  It  is  the  best  I  could  find  for  the  pre- 
sent, but  I  have  no  prejudices  in  its  favour." 

Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hoppner  were  strongly 
in  favour  of  a  Swiss,  rather  than  an  Italian 


258  COMPROMISES 

school ;  and  Byron,  who  never  doubted  the 
sincerity  of  their  affection  for  his  child,  lent  a 
ready  ear  to  their  suggestions.  "  If  I  had  but 
known  your  ideas  about  Switzerland  before," 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Hoppner  in  May ;  "  I  should 
have  adopted  them  at  once.  As  it  is,  I  shall 
let  Allegra  remain  in  her  convent,  where  she 
seems  healthy  and  happy,  for  the  present.  But 
I  shall  feel  much  obliged  if  you  will  inquire, 
when  you  are  in  the  cantons,  about  the  usual 
and  better  modes  of  education  there  for  fe- 
males, and  let  me  know  the  result  of  your 
inquiries.  It  is  some  consolation  that  both 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Shelley  have  written  to  approve 
entirely  of  my  placing  the  child  with  the  nuns 
for  the  present.  I  can  refer  to  my  whole  con- 
duct, as  having  spared  no  trouble,  nor  kind- 
ness, nor  expense,  since  she  was  sent  to  me. 
People  may  say  what  they  please.  I  must  con- 
tent myself  with  not  deserving  (in  this  case) 
that  they  should  speak  ill. 

"  The  place  is  a  country  town,  in  a  good  air, 
where  there  is  a  large  establishment  for  educa- 
tion, and  many  children,  some  of  considerable 
rank,  placed  in  it.  As  a  country  town,  it  is 


ALLEGE A  259 

less  liable  to  objections  of  every  kind.  It  has 
always  appeared  to  me  that  the  moral  defect 
in  Italy  does  not  proceed  from  a  conventual 
training,  —  because,  to  my  certain  knowledge, 
girls  come  out  of  their  convents  innocent, 
even  to  ignorance,  of  moral  evil ;  —  but  to  the 
society  into  which  they  are  plunged  directly 
on  coming  out  of  it.  It  is  like  educating  an 
infant  on  a  mountain  top,  and  then  taking 
him  to  the  sea,  and  throwing  him  into  it,  and 
desiring  him  to  swim." 

Other  letters  to  Mr.  Hoppner,  to  Shelley, 
and  to  Moore  are  equally  practical  and  explicit. 
Byron  writes  that  he  has  regular  reports  of 
Allegra's  health;  that  she  has  mastered  her 
alphabet ;  that  he  is  having  her  reared  a  Catho- 
lic, "  so  that  she  may  have  her  hands  full ; " 
that  he  meditates  increasing  her  dowry,  "if 
I  live,  and  she  is  correct  in  her  conduct ;  "  that 
he  thinks  a  Swiss  gentleman  might  make  her 
a  better  husband  than  an  Italian.  Pamela  the 
virtuous  was  not  more  set  upon  her  own  "  mar- 
riage lines "  than  was  Lord  Byron  upon  his 
daughter's.  Respectability  was  the  golden  boon 
he  coveted  for  the  poor  little  pledge  of  an 


260  COMPROMISES 

illicit  and  unhappy  passion.  No  one  knew  bet- 
ter than  he  how  well  it  is  to  walk  a  safe  and 
sheltered  road;  and  no  correct  church-going 
father  in  England  was  ever  more  concerned 
for  the  decent  settlement  of  his  child. 

There  were  others  who  took  a  more  impas- 
sioned view  of  the  situation.  Miss  Clairmont 
was  spending  her  Carnival  merrily  in  Flor- 
ence, when  word  came  that  Allegra  had  been 
sent  to  school.  It  was  a  blow,  says  Professor 
Dowden,  "under  which  she  staggered  and 
reeled."  In  vain  Shelley  and  his  wife  repre- 
sented to  her  the  wisdom  of  the  step.  In  vain 
Byron  wrote  that  the  air  of  the  Komagna  was 
exceptionally  good,  and  that  he  paid  double  fees 
for  his  little  daughter,  to  insure  her  every  care 
and  attention.  Claire,  piteously  unreasonable, 
answered  only  with  frenzied  reproaches  and 
appeals.  She  taunted  the  poet  with  his  un- 
happy married  life,  —  which  was  applying 
vitriol  to  a  raw  wound ;  she  inveighed  against 
the  "  ignorance  and  degradation  "  of  convent- 
reared  women,  she  implored  permission  to 
carry  her  child  to  England.  "  I  propose,"  she 
wrote,  with  maddening  perversity,  "  to  place 


ALLEGRA  261 

her  at  my  own  expense  in  one  of  the  very  best 
English  boarding-schools,  where,  if  she  is  de- 
prived of  the  happiness  of  a  home  and  pater- 
nal care,  she  at  least  would  receive  an  English 
education,  which  would  enable  her,  after  many 
years  of  painful  and  unprotected  childhood,  to 
be  benefited  by  the  kindness  and  affection  of 
her  parents'  friends.  .  .  .  By  adopting  this 
plan,  you  will  save  yourself  credit  and  also 
the  expense ;  and  the  anxiety  for  her  safety 
and  well-being  need  never  trouble  you.  You 
will  become  as  free  as  if  you  had  no  such  tie." 
As  an  example  of  the  purely  exasperating, 
this  letter  has  few  peers  in  recorded  corre- 
spondence. "  At  my  own  expense,"  meant  at 
Shelley's  expense  ;  and  Byron,  loving  or  un- 
loving, had  never  sought  to  shirk  his  paternal 
responsibilities.  The  alluring  prospect  of  free- 
dom from  all  concern  offered  little  temptation 
to  a  father  who  had  his  child's  future  very 
seriously  at  heart.  Miss  Clairmont  was  sur- 
rounded at  this  time  by  a  group  of  eminently 
foolish  counsellors,  the  most  prominent  of 
whom  were  Lady  Mountcashell,  Mr.  Tighe, 
and  Miss  Elizabeth  Parker.  Lady  Mount- 


262  COMPROMISES 

cashell  had  a  venerable  husband  in  England, 
but  preferred  living  in  Italy  with  Mr.  Tighe. 
There  she  employed  her  leisure  in  writing  a 
book  upon  the  training  of  children,  —  a  work 
which  her  friends  highly  esteemed,  and  which 
they  held  to  be  an  ample  compensation  to 
society  for  any  irregularities  in  her  own  life. 
The  couple  were  known  as  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Mason.  Miss  Parker  was  an  orphan  girl,  sent 
from  England  by  Mrs.  Godwin  to  be  a  com- 
panion to  Lady  Mountcashell,  and  profit  by 
her  example.  These  people  kept  alive  in 
Claire's  heart  the  flame  of  resentment  and 
unrest.  Mr.  Tighe  dwelt  mournfully  upon  the 
austerity,  as  well  as  upon  the  degradation  of 
convent  life,  until  the  mother's  grief  grew  so 
excessive  that  in  August,  1821,  the  long-suffer- 
ing Shelley  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Ravenna  and 
to  Bagnacavallo,  to  see  how  Allegra  was  placed, 
and  to  assure  himself  of  her  health  and  happi- 
ness. His  charming  letter  —  too  long  to  be 
quoted  hi  full  —  gives  us  the  prettiest  imagin- 
able picture  of  a  little  school-girl,  not  yet  five 
years  old. 

"  I  went  the  other  day  to  see  Allegra  at  her 


ALLEGRA  263 

convent,  and  stayed  with  her  about  three 
hours.  She  is  grown  tall  and  slight  for  her 
age,  and  her  face  is  somewhat  altered.  She 
yet  retains  the  beauty  of  her  deep  blue  eyes 
and  of  her  mouth ;  but  she  has  a  contemplative 
seriousness,  which,  mixed  with  her  excessive 
vivacity  which  has  not  yet  deserted  her,  has  a 
very  peculiar  effect  in  a  child.  She  is  under 
strict  discipline,  as  may  be  observed  from  the 
immediate  obedience  she  accords  to  the  will  of 
her  attendants.  This  seems  contrary  to  her 
nature ;  but  I  do  not  think  it  has  been  ob- 
tained at  the  expense  of  much  severity.  Her 
hair,  scarcely  darker  than  it  was,  is  beautifully 
profuse,  and  hangs  in  large  curls  on  her  neck. 
She  was  prettily  dressed  in  white  muslin,  and 
an  apron  of  black  silk,  with  trousers.  Her 
light  and  airy  figure  and  her  graceful  motions 
were  a  striking  contrast  to  the  other  children 
there.  She  seemed  a  thing  of  a  finer  and  a 
higher  order.  At  first  she  was  very  shy  ;  but 
after  a  little  caressing,  and  especially  after  I 
had  given  her  a  gold  chain  which  I  had  bought 
for  her  at  Ravenna,  she  grew  more  familiar, 
and  led  me  all  over  the  garden,  and  all  over 


264  COMPROMISES 

the  convent,  running  and  skipping  so  fast  that 
I  could  hardly  keep  up  with  her.  She  showed 
me  her  little  bed,  and  the  chair  where  she  sat  at 
dinner,  and  the  carozzina  in  which  she  and  her 
favourite  companions  drew  each  other  along  a 
walk  in  the  garden.  I  had  brought  her  a  bas- 
ket of  sweetmeats,  and,  before  eating  any  of 
them,  she  gave  her  friends  and  each  of  the 
nuns  a  portion.  This  is  not  like  the  old  Alle- 
gra.  .  .  .  Her  intellect  is  not  much  cultivated. 
She  knows  certain  orazioni  by  heart,  and  talks 
and  dreams  of  Paradiso  and  all  sorts  of  things, 
and  has  a  prodigious  list  of  saints,  and  is  always 
talking  of  the  Bambino.  This  will  do  her  no 
harm ;  but  the  idea  of  bringing  up  so  sweet  a 
creature  in  the  midst  of  such  trash  'till  six- 
teen." 

Shelley's  content  with  Allegra's  situation 
(the  little  tempest-tossed  bark  had  at  last  sailed 
into  quiet  waters)  failed  to  bring  comfort  to 
Claire.  The  convent  walls  rose  —  a  hopeless 
barrier  —  between  mother  and  child  ;  and  the 
finality  of  the  separation  weighed  cruelly  upon 
her  spirits.  One  of  her  most  bitter  grievances 
was  the  fear  that  her  daughter  was  being  edu- 


ALLEGE A  265 

cated  with  the  children  of  tradespeople,  -~  an 
unfounded  alarm,  as  we  see  from  the  list  com- 
piled by  Signer  Biondi  of  the  little  marchesas 
and  contessas  who  were  Allegra's  playmates. 
Another,  and  a  reasonable  anxiety,  came  with 
the  approach  of  winter.  Miss  Clairmont  then 
thinks  less  about  the  ignorance  and  immorality 
of  Italian  women,  and  more  about  the  un- 
doubted cold  of  Italian  convents.  She  is  afraid, 
and  naturally  afraid,  that  her  child  is  not  warm 
enough.  There  is  one  piteous  letter  in  which 
she  says  that  she  cannot  look  at  a  glowing  fire 
without  a  sorrowful  remembrance  of  her  little 
daughter  in  the  chilly  convent  halls. 

All  these  sources  of  disquietude  were  strength- 
ened the  following  year  by  a  new  and  unreason- 
ing terror.  Miss  Clairmont  appears  to  have 
actually  persuaded  herself  that  Lord  Byron 
meant  to  leave  Allegra  at  Bagnacavallo,  in  the 
event  of  his  own  departure  from  Italy.  We 
know  now  from  his  letters  that  it  was  his 
settled  purpose  to  take  her  with  him,  wherever 
he  went.  Even  when  he  meditated  —  briefly 
—  an  exile  to  South  America,  the  child  was  to 
accompany  his  flight.  But  his  persistent  silence, 


266  COMPROMISES 

his  maddening  refusal  to  answer  Claire's  ap- 
peals or  remonstrances,  left  her  in  painful 
ignorance,  and  a  prey  to  consuming  fears.  She 
conceived  the  mad  design  of  stealing  AUegra 
from  the  convent,  —  a  scheme  which  was 
warmly  supported  by  those  discreet  monitors, 
Lady  Mountcashell  and  Mr.  Tighe.  Together 
they  discussed  ways  and  means.  Mr.  Tighe 
was  of  the  opinion  that  the  time  had  come  for 
extreme  measures  ;  and  the  ardent  Miss  Parker 
assured  Miss  Clairmont  that,  were  she  AUegra's 
mother,  she  would  not  hesitate  to  stab  Lord 
Byron  to  the  heart,  and  so  free  his  unhappy 
offspring  from  captivity. 

In  the  midst  of  this  melodramatic  turmoil 
we  hear  Mrs.  Shelley's  voice,  pleading  vainly 
for  patience  and  common  sense.  She  points 
out  in  an  earnest  letter  to  Claire  that  Lady 
Noel's  death  will  probably  compel  Byron  to  go 
to  England,  and  may  even  lead  to  a  reconcili- 
ation with  his  wife.  In  that  event  he  will  be 
more  willing  to  give  back  AUegra  to  her 
mother ;  and  for  the  present,  there  is  no  cause 
for  apprehension.  "Your  anxiety  about  the 
child's  health,"  she  writes  reassuringly,  "  is  to 


ALLEGRA  267 

a  great  extent  unfounded.  You  ought  to  know, 
and  any  one  will  tell  you,  that  the  towns  of 
Eomagna,  situated  where  Bagnacavallo  is,  enjoy 
the  best  air  in  Italy.  Imola  and  the  neighbour- 
ing paese  are  famous.  Bagnacavallo  especially, 
being  fifteen  miles  from  the  sea,  and  situated 
on  an  eminence,  is  peculiarly  salutary.  Consid- 
ering the  affair  reasonably,  Allegra  is  well 
taken  care  of  there.  She  is  in  good  health,  and 
in  all  probability  will  continue  so." 

One  fact  she  strives  to  make  clear.  Her  hus- 
band has  no  money  for  the  furtherance  of  any 
plots  that  Miss  Clairmont  and  Mr.  Tighe  may 
devise.  On  this  score,  Shelley  himself  is  equally 
explicit.  He  had  never  wanted  Allegra  to  go 
to  her  father,  and  he  cannot  resist  the  tempta- 
tion of  saying,  "  I  told  you  so,"  though  he  says 
it  with  grave  kindness.  But  he  was  even  less 
willing  that,  having  been  given  up,  she  should  be 
stolen  back  again.  His  letter  of  remonstrance 
proves  both  the  anxiety  he  felt,  and  his  sense 
of  shame  at  the  part  he  was  expected  to  play. 

MY  DEAR  CLARE,  —  I  know  not  what  to 
think  of  the  state  of  your  mind,  nor  what  to 


268  COMPROMISES 

fear  for  you.  Your  plan  about  Allegra  seems 
to  me,  in  its  present  form,  pregnant  with  irre- 
mediable infamy  to  all  the  actors  in  it  except 
yourself  ;  —  in  any  form  wherein  I  must  act- 
ively cooperate,  with  inevitable  destruction. 
I  could  not  refuse  Lord  Byron's  challenge ; 
though  that,  however  to  be  deprecated,  would 
be  the  least  in  the  series  of  mischiefs  conse- 
quent upon  my  intervention  in  such  a  plan.  I 
am  shocked  at  the  thoughtless  violence  of  your 
designs,  and  I  wish  to  put  my  sense  of  their 
madness  in  the  strongest  light.  I  may  console 
myself,  however,  with  the  reflection  that  the 
attempt  even  is  impossible,  as  I  have  no  money. 
So  far  from  being  ready  to  lend  me  three  or 
four  hundred  pounds,  Horace  Smith  has  lately 
declined  to  advance  six  or  seven  napoleons  for 
a  musical  instrument  which  I  wished  to  buy 
for  Jane  Williams  in  Paris.  Nor  have  I  any 
other  friends  to  whom  I  could  apply. 

There  was  no  need  of  heroics  on  the  one  side, 
nor  of  apprehension  on  the  other.  While  Miss 
Clairmont  was  fretting  and  scheming  in  Flor- 
ence, fever  was  scourging  the  Romagna,  so 


ALLEGRA  269 

seldom  visited  by  infection,  and  the  little  Eng- 
lish-born girl  fell  one  of  its  earliest  victims. 
Allegra  died  at  her  convent  school  in  the  spring 
of  1822.  Byron  admitted  that  death  was  kind. 
"  Her  position  in  the  world  would  scarcely  have 
allowed  her  to  be  happy,"  he  said,  pitying  re- 
morsefully the  "  sinless  child  of  sin,"  so  harshly 
handicapped  in  life.  But  he  felt  his  loss,  and 
bitterly,  though  silently,  mourned  it.  The 
Countess  Guiccioli  was  with  him  when  the 
tidings  came.  In  her  eyes,  he  had  always  been 
a  fond  and  solicitous  father ;  yet  the  violence  of 
his  distress  amazed  and  frightened  her.  He 
sent  her  away,  and  faced  his  grief,  and  his  re- 
morse —  if  he  felt  remorse  —  alone.  The  next 
day,  when  she  sought  him,  he  said  very  simply, 
"  It  is  God's  will.  She  is  more  fortunate  than 
we  are ; "  and  never  spoke  of  the  child  again. 
"  From  that  time  "  she  adds,  "  he  became  more 
anxious  about  his  daughter  Ada ;  —  so  much 
so  as  to  disquiet  himself  when  the  usual  ac- 
counts sent  him  were  for  a  post  or  two  de- 
layed." 

Byron's  letters  to  Shelley,  to  Murray,  and  to 
Scott,  bear  witness  to  the  sincerity  of  his  grief, 


270  COMPROMISES 

and  also  to  his  sense  of  compunction.  He  was 
still  ready  to  defend  his  conduct ;  but  to  Shel- 
ley, at  least,  he  admitted :  "  It  is  a  moment 
when  we  are  apt  to  think  that,  if  this  or  that 
had  been  done,  such  an  event  might  have  been 
prevented."  Indeed,  of  the  four  actors  so  deeply 
concerned  in  this  brief  tragedy  of  life,  Shelley 
alone  could  hold  himself  free  from  blame. 
From  first  to  last  he  had  been  generous,  reason- 
able, and  kind.  It  was  his  painful  part  to  com- 
fort Miss  Clairmont,  to  restrain  her  frenzy  of 
anger  and  wretchedness,  to  make  what  shadow 
of  peace  he  could  between  the  parents  of  the 
dead  child.  In  all  this  he  endured  more  than 
his  share  of  worry  and  vexation.  Two  weeks 
after  Allegra's  death,  he  wrote  to  Lord  Byron  : 
"  I  have  succeeded  in  dissuading  Clare  from 
the  melancholy  design  of  visiting  the  coffin  at 
Leghorn,  much  to  the  profit  of  my  own  shat- 
tered health  and  spirits,  which  would  have  suf- 
fered greatly  in  accompanying  her  on  such  a 
journey.  She  is  much  better.  She  has,  indeed, 
altogether  suffered  in  a  mannerless  terrible  than 
I  expected,  after  the  first  shock,  during  which, 
of  course,  she  wrote  the  letter  you  enclose.  I 


ALLEGRA  271 

had  no  idea  that  her  letter  was  written  in  that 
temper ;  and  I  think  I  need  not  assure  you 
that,  whatever  mine  or  Mary's  ideas  might  have 
been  respecting  the  system  of  education  you 
intended  to  adopt,  we  sympathize  too  much  in 
your  loss,  and  appreciate  too  well  your  feelings, 
to  have  allowed  such  a  letter  to  be  sent  to  you, 
had  we  suspected  its  contents." 

A  dead  grief  is  easier  to  bear  than  a  live 
trouble.  By  early  summer,  Shelley  was  able 
to  report  Miss  Clairmont  as  once  more  "  talk- 
ative and  vivacious."  It  was  he  who  befriended 
her  to  the  end,  and  who  bequeathed  her  a  large 
share  of  his  estate.  It  was  he  who  saw — or 
deemed  he  saw  —  the  image  of  Allegra  rise 
smiling  and  beckoning  from  the  sea. 

According  to  the  Countess  Guiccioli,  Byron 
bore  the  "  profound  sorrow  "  occasioned  by  his 
little  daughter's  death  "  with  all  the  fortitude 
belonging  to  his  great  soul."  In  reality  his 
sense  of  loss  was  tempered  by  relief.  Allegra's 
future  had  always  been  to  him  a  subject  of 
anxiety,  and  it  was  not  without  an  emotion  of 
joy  that  he  realized  the  child's  escape  from  a 
world  which  he  had  found  bad,  and  which  he 


272  COMPROMISES 

had  done  little  to  make  better.  Two  days  after 
she  died,  he  wrote  to  Murray :  "  You  will  re- 
gret to  hear  that  I  have  received  intelligence 
of  the  death  of  my  daughter,  Allegra,  of  a  fever, 
in  the  convent  of  Bagnacavallo,  where  she  was 
placed  for  the  last  year  to  commence  her  edu- 
cation. It  is  a  heavy  blow  for  many  reasons, 
but  must  be  borne,  —  with  time." 

A  fortnight  later  he  wrote  to  Scott :  "  I 
have  just  lost  my  natural  daughter,  Allegra, 
by  a  fever.  The  only  consolation,  save  time,  is 
the  reflection  that  she  is  either  at  rest  or  happy ; 
for  her  few  years  (only  five)  prevented  her 
from  having  incurred  any  sin,  except  what  we 
inherit  from  Adam. 

" '  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young.' " 

In  a  third  letter,  published  by  Mr.  Prothero, 
Byron  repeats  these  sentiments  with  even 
greater  emphasis,  and  with  a  keener  apprecia- 
tion of  their  value.  "  Death  has  done  his  work, 
and  I  am  resigned.  .  .  .  Even  at  my  age  I 
have  become  so  much  worn  and  harassed  by 
the  trials  of  the  world,  that  I  cannot  refrain 
from  looking  upon  that  early  rest  which  is  at 


ALLEGRA  273 

times  granted  to  the  young,  as  a  blessing. 
There  is  a  purity  and  holiness  in  the  apotheo- 
sis of  those  who  leave  us  in  their  brightness 
and  their  beauty,  which  instinctively  lead  us 
to  a  persuasion  of  their  beatitude." 

It  was  the  irony  of  fate  that,  after  being 
an  innocent  object  of  contention  all  her  life, 
Allegra  should,  even  in  death,  have  been  made 
the  theme  of  an  angry  and  bitter  dispute.  Her 
body  was  sent  to  England,  and  Byron  begged 
Murray  to  make  all  the  necessary  arrangements 
for  her  burial.  His  directions  were  exceedingly 
minute.  He  indicated  the  precise  spot  in  Har- 
row Church  where  he  wished  the  child  interred, 
and  he  wrote  the  inscription  to  be  engraved 
upon  her  tablet. 

IN   MEMORY   OF 

ALLEGRA, 

DAUGHTER   OF   G.    G.    LORD    BYRON, 
WHO   DIED   AT   BAGNACAVALLO, 

IN   ITALY,    APRIL    20TH,    1822, 
AGED    FIVE   YEARS   AND   THREE   MONTHS. 

I  shall  go  to  her,  but  she  shall  not  return  to  me. 

2  SAMUEL,  xii.  23. 


274  COMPROMISES 

The  funeral  he  desired  to  be  "  as  private  as  is 
consistent  with  decency ; "  and  he  expressed 
a  hope  that  his  friend,  the  Rev.  Henry  Drury, 
would  read  the  church  service. 

Murray  found  himself  beset  by  unexpected 
difficulties.  The  vicar  of  Harrow,  the  Rev. 
J.  W.  Cunningham,  objected  strenuously  to 
the  erection  of  Allegra's  tablet,  and  stated  his 
objections  at  length ;  —  not  to  Lord  Byron 
(which  was  prudent),  but  to  the  unhappy 
publisher,  who,  all  his  life,  had  everybody's 
business  to  attend  to.  Mr.  Cunningham  de- 
clared that  the  proposed  inscription  "  would  be 
felt  by  every  man  of  refined  taste,  to  say  no- 
thing of  sound  morals,  to  be  an  offence  against 
taste  and  propriety."  He  explained  cautiously 
that,  as  he  did  not  dare  to  say  this  to  Byron, 
he  expected  Murray  to  do  so.  "  My  corre- 
spondence with  his  Lordship  has  been  so 
small  that  I  can  scarcely  venture  myself  to 
urge  these  objections.  You,  perhaps,  will  feel 
no  such  scruple.  I  have  seen  no  person  who 
did  not  concur  in  the  propriety  of  stating 
them.  I  would  intreat,  however,  that,  should 
you  think  it  right  to  introduce  my  name 


ALLEGE A  275 

into  any  statement  made  to  Lord  Byron " 
(as  if  it  could  well  have  been  left  out), 
"you  will  not  do  so  without  assuring  him 
of  my  unwillingness  to  oppose  the  smallest 
obstacle  to  his  wishes,  or  give  the  slightest 
pain  to  his  mind.  The  injury  which,  in  my 
judgment,  he  is  from  day  to  day  inflicting  upon 
society  is  no  justification  for  measures  of 
retaliation  and  unkindness." 

Even  the  expansive  generosity  of  this  last 
sentiment  failed  to  soften  Byron's  wrath,  when 
the  vicar's  scruples  were  communicated  to  him. 
He  anathematized  the  reverend  gentleman  in 
language  too  vigorous  for  repetition,  and  he 
demanded  of  Murray,  "  what  was  the  matter 
with  the  inscription,"  —  apparently  under  the 
impression  that  he  had  mistaken  his  dates,  or 
misquoted  his  text.  His  anger  deepened  into 
fury  when  he  was  subsequently  informed  that 
Allegra's  interment  in  Harrow  Church  was  held 
to  be  a  deliberate  insult  to  Lady  Byron,  who  oc- 
casionally attended  the  services  there.  He  wrote 
passionately  that  of  his  wife's  church-goings  he 
knew  nothing;  but  that,  had  he  known,  no 
power  would  have  induced  him  to  bury  his 


276  COMPROMISES 

poor  infant  where  her  foot  might  tread  upon 
its  grave.  Meanwhile,  Mr.  Cunningham  had 
marshalled  his  church-wardens,  who  obediently 
withheld  their  consent  to  the  erection  of  the 
tablet;  so  that  matter  was  settled  forever. 
Two  years  later,  Dr.  Ireland,  Dean  of  West- 
minster, refused  to  permit  Lord  Byron's  body 
to  be  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Even 
Thorwaldsen's  statue  of  the  poet,  now  in 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  was  rejected  by 
this  conscientious  dignitary.  "I  do  indeed 
greatly  wish  for  a  figure  by  Thorwaldsen  here," 
he  wrote  piously  to  Murray ;  "  but  no  taste 
ought  to  be  indulged  to  the  prejudice  of  a 
duty."  The  statue  lay  unheeded  for  months 
in  a  shed  on  the  Thames  wharf,  and  was 
finally  transferred  to  the  library  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge.  Comment  is  superfluous. 
Byron  was  denied  a  grave  in  Westminster 
Abbey;  but  Gifford,  through  Dr.  Ireland's 
especial  insistence,  was  buried  within  its 
walls. 

Allegra  lies  in  Harrow  Church,  with  no 
tablet  to  mark  her  resting-place,  or  to  preserve 
her  memory.  Visitors  searching  sentimentally 


ALLEGE A  277 

for  "Byron's  tomb," — by  which  they  mean  a 
stone  in  the  churchyard,  "  on  the  brow  of 
the  hill,  looking  towards  Windsor,"  where, 
as  a  boy,  he  was  wont  to  sit  and  dream  for 
hours,  —  seldom  know  the  spot  where  his  little 
daughter  sleeps. 


(die  ftitettfibe 

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